India's Pandemic Death Toll Could Be In The Millions

[appalachiablue]

Source: AP News

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the South Asian country.

Most experts believe India’s official toll of more than 414,000 dead is a vast undercount, but the government has dismissed those concerns as exaggerated and misleading.

The report released Tuesday estimated excess deaths — the gap between those recorded and those that would have been expected — to be 3 million to 4.7 million between January 2020 and June 2021. It said an accurate figure may “prove elusive” but the true death toll “is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count.”

The report was published by Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s former chief economic adviser, and two other researchers at the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, and Harvard University...

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-science-health-india-pandemics-334c326d86efa73a0631bf7cb6e3f92e

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- April 24, 2021: Multiple funeral pyres of those who died of COVID-19 burn at a ground that has been converted into a crematorium for the mass cremation of coronavirus victims, in New Delhi, India. India's excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India's worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the south Asian country.

[applegrove]

1. Tragic:

[appalachiablue]

2. Massive suffering & deaths, an epic tragedy

[applegrove]

4. And they were producing so much covid vaccine

for the rest of the world in the first year of the pandemic.

[appalachiablue]

7. Even sadder, & they mfg. most of

our pharmaceuticals I think. Misery, exploitation, corruption.

[applegrove]

12. And petty authoritarianism.

[Stuart G]

3. Very sad..

[peppertree]

5. It'll be impossible to know because India's the world's largest nation W/O accurate birth/death data

Demographers are looking forward to seeing countries' mortality data for all causes for 2020, which among other things will serve as the best indication of how much each country may have under-reported Covid deaths.

The U.S., for example, had the official Covid death toll at 364,000 for 2020 - but preliminary mortality data (for all causes) released by the CDC showed there were at least 500,000 excess deaths.

This suggests an undercount of around 140,000.

For Russia, the gap is even worse: they reported 57,000 Covid deaths for 2020 - but they themselves later reported en excess death total for 2020 of over 300,000.

But for India, only rough estimates have ever been available for birth/death data - mainly based on census data.

This is the case for many 3rd world countries, true - but none with 1.4 billion people.

Consequently, knowing the real death toll - even a ballpark figure - will be almost impossible for India.

They do have a census coming up - but they've had to postpone it until next year at least.

[appalachiablue]

6. Tx, I didn't know that about India's data

or the other countries. What a global tragedy that rages on.

[peppertree]

10. You're very welcome.

The Belgian model of including diagnosed and symptom-consistent Covid deaths in the Covid death total - slammed by many governments as 'overly broad' at first - will probably prove to be the most accurate.

We'll know by next May or so, when most countries (that can) report their 2020 birth/death totals for all causes.

[TheRickles]

14. All-cause mortality in the US and elsewhere may also be up due to indirectly related factors.

Overdoses, shootings, domestic violence, alcohol-related automobile accidents, suicide, etc. - unintended consequences of the lockdown.

[peppertree]

20. Some - but not nearly enough to explain the discrepancy

In the U.S. for instance, 'external cause' (non-natural) deaths were up by 33,000 (to 273,000) in 2020.

But the total number of deaths jumped by 535,000 (to 3.39 million).

Even accounting for normal year-to-year increase in deaths, the excess is at least 500,000.

To your point, on the other hand, cardiac deaths did jump by 39,000 in 2020, diabetes by 15,000, and alzheimers by 13,000.

Those jumps are all about 10 times the normal yearly increase. How many were due to overwhelmed hospitals? How many were actually Covid deaths?

Hard to tell.

[TheRickles]

22. Yes, thanks. It'll be important to get some definitive tallies on these categories.

If that's ever even possible. Also interesting would be to find out what % of Covid-related deaths were people with associated co-morbidities (age, obesity, diabetes) and those without. "Death from Covid" vs. "death with Covid", etc.

[peppertree]

23. And some countries like India, will probably never know

As it is, they're not exactly sure how many people they have - much less many die from Covid, how many choke on puri curry, etc.

[Picaro]

8. Been wondering about their numbers

Last edited Tue Jul 20, 2021, 09:16 PM - Edit history (1)

When I looked at the size of the population and the new infection numbers I had serious questions about their mortality numbers. They didn't match.

At the time, when India was the top pandemic news, I made some off the cuff comment that the numbers were probably off by a factor of 10. Hoped I wasn't right.

Turns out I was pretty close. This is so incredibly ugly.

The election of a right wing Hindu nativist has turned out to a very deadly decision. Just as electing a megalomaniacal carnival barker was here.

[appalachiablue]

9. These RW extremists are rising threats

and it has to end, or so long democracy. Rocky dark times for too many.

[IronLionZion]

11. Modi is taking the Trump approach

by pretending that people can't trust their own lying eyes. Since that worked out so well for Trump.

It shouldn't be lost in history books that the countries faring the worst during this pandemic all have RW authoritarian leaders and the US's outcomes improved dramatically once we changed our leadership. Modi might have fewer voters after a while.

[appalachiablue]

13. Rising authoritarianism around

the world has to be defeated, or lights out for democracy, hello Dark Ages II. Monsters creating misery, killing everything. Several years ago I sensed the end of the Enlightenment era sorry to say.

[Initech]

16. Modi is an inhuman monster.

So are the rest of the authoritarians - Duterte, Bolsonaro, Johnson, Erdogan, and so on. I thank fucking god every day that Trump was not reelected, or we'd be right there with India.

[appalachiablue]

18. We would be like Brazil or India w 45,

god help us..

[GB_RN]

19. We Practically Are

Worldometers, has the US death count a little north of 625,000. That’s likely lowballed from deaths at home, during lockdown. I remember that NYC reported that deaths at home during their initial lockdown were 4x higher, and none were being tested for COVID, simply because they didn’t have the resources. Plus, people were afraid to go to the hospital, even when having heart attacks, because they didn’t want to catch COVID. I know this, because as a cardiac cath lab nurse, people weren’t coming in, unless they were already in cardiac arrest, and those who survived, reported that as the reason why.

Then, you have COVID-related cardiac issues, which actually caused heart attacks, so how many people had heart attacks and died, not even knowing they had COVID?

It goes on and on…

[JI7]

15. People that support Modi say that the country is overpopulated

so this isn't a problem.

[GB_RN]

17. COVID-19 Is Mother Nature's Revenge

[Shellback Squid]

21. they are running out of wood for their pyres