Four million deaths in India from coronavirus? One study says yes

07/20/2021 8:38 AM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 07/20/2021 9:21 AM

The covid-19 disease could have caused an excess of four million deaths in India since the start of the pandemic, a number well above the nearly

400,000 officially registered,

according to a study published Tuesday by the Center for the Global Development (CGD).

"All estimates suggest that the death toll from the pandemic is likely to be an order of

magnitude higher

than the official count of 400,000," the authors said after estimating excess deaths, the gap between recorded and those expected to occur.

The report was published by Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic adviser to the Indian government, and two other researchers from the Center for Global Development and

Harvard University.

A man digs a grave to bury a coronavirus victim.

Photo: AP

Extrapolation of civil registration to the state level from seven states yields "an excess of

3.4 million deaths"

from COVID-19 in India, according to the study.

Second, comparing international estimates of coronavirus death rates with seroprevalence studies in the Asian country results in "a higher number of

around 4 million,

" the research reports.

A third analysis of a survey carried out three times a year to more than 800,000 people distributed in all the states of the Asian giant shows an estimated excess of

4.9 million deaths.

Funerary pyres in Bengaluru, India.

Photo: AP

The CGD study warns that official data may have overlooked

deaths in collapsed hospitals,

especially during the second wave of the coronavirus that swept through the Asian nation a few months ago and that came to cause a severe shortage of oxygen and nursing beds. intensive care due to the fragile health system that the country presents.

In those days, the virus had left a death toll impossible to manage.

And the country in a few days was filled with funeral pyres.

Dr Jacob John, who studies viruses at Christian Medical College in Vellore, South India, reviewed the report for The Associated Press and said the study

underscores the devastating impact

COVID-19 had on the health system. ill-prepared health of the country.

"This analysis reiterates the observations of other intrepid investigative journalists who have highlighted

the massive underestimation of deaths,

" said Jacob.

Figures in decline

The country

is now far

from those 400,000 cases and more than 4,500 deaths a day that it reached during its peak of infections in mid-April.

CASES

0.000.00000.000

per million inhab.

Xxxxx

DEATHS

00,0000,000

per million inhab.

Source:

Johns Hopkins

Chart:

Flourish

|

Infographic:

Clarín

This Tuesday, India registered 374 deaths and 30,093 positive cases,

the lowest number

the country has registered in the last four months.

The fear of a third wave of infections in the coming months, which several experts have already classified as "inevitable" due to the new variants of SARS-CoV-2, has led to an acceleration of the rate of inoculations in a country that sees in immunization is

the only way

to eradicate this pandemic.

India has administered around

412 million doses

of the coronavirus vaccine since the start of its vaccination campaign on January 16, 5.2 of them in the last 24 hours.

So far, just over 85 million people have received the full guideline.

Source: EFE and Associated Press

ap

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