Latest Covid death estimates shared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) point at a whopping 47.4 lakh excess deaths in India. This number is nearly 10 times the country’s official Covid-19 reported deaths between 2020 and 2021.

Readers would recall that CJP had published a study of excess deaths in the state of Uttar Pradesh’s Purvanchal region alone. We found that from January 2020 to August 2021, the areas surveyed saw around 60% more recorded deaths than expected from 2019 records as well as from government data on the death rate in the state before the pandemic.

Estimates released by the WHO on May 5, 2022 say that globally, the coronavirus resulted in a total excess death toll of 1.49 crore deaths. Excess mortality is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years.

With India accounting for an approximate 47,40,894 Covid deaths, this means that the country alone accounts for nearly a third of the world’s casualties!

These numbers are the result of a global collaboration supported by a technical advisory group and country consultations in line with several independent studies that claimed gross undercounting of deaths by India.

By December 2020, the data estimated 8.32 lakh deaths in India with the highest deaths reported in September 2020 (3.13 lakh deaths). Between January 2020 and December 2021, the highest deaths were reported in May 2021 (13.04 lakh deaths). Following India, are Russia (10,72,326 deaths) Indonesia (10,28,565 deaths), the US (9,32,458 deaths) and Brazil (6,81, 267 deaths).

“These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

Overall, 84 percent of excess deaths are concentrated in South-East Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Around 68 percent of excess deaths are concentrated in just 10 countries globally. Middle-income countries account for 81 percent of the 1.49 cr excess deaths. As many as 53 percent deaths were from the lower-middle-income countries and 28 percent deaths were from the upper-middle-income countries over the 24-month period.

Further, the WHO stated that the global death toll was higher for men than for women (57 percent male, 43 percent female) and higher among older adults.

Centre claims dubious methodology

Rejecting these data points, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare published a press release where it criticised the methodology adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates.

“Despite India’s objection to the process, methodology and outcome of this modelling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns. India had also informed WHO that in view of the availability of authentic data published through Civil Registration System (CRS) by Registrar General of India (RGI), mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India,” it said.

The Ministry claimed that birth and death registrations in India are robust aspects of the administration. Earlier, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) carried out a survey in Varanasi and neighbouring areas and showed for rural India the registration system has fallen into disarray.

The government also claimed other inconsistencies in the criteria and assumptions used to classify countries into Tier I and II and questioned India’s position as a ‘Tier II’ country. It stressed WHO’s own admission that data in respect of seventeen Indian states was obtained from some websites and media reports and was used in their mathematical model.

“This reflects a statistically unsound and scientifically questionable methodology of data collection for making excess mortality projections in case of India,” said the Ministry.

The Union health ministry had, on the basis of data from states, documented 4,81,000 Covid-19 deaths during 2020 and 2021 as opposed to WHO estimates.

Meanwhile, WHO Assistant Director-General for Data, Analytics and Delivery Dr Samira Asma said, “These new estimates use the best available data and have been produced using a robust methodology and a completely transparent approach.”

Similarly, Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response Dr Ibrahima Socé Fall stressed that data is the foundation for promoting health.“We know where the data gaps are, and we must collectively intensify our support to countries, so that every country has the capability to track outbreaks in real-time, ensure delivery of essential health services, and safeguard population health,” said Fall.

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Dainik Jagran had filed a suit seeking injunction against fact-checking portal Alt News for an article dated May 30, published by the latter titled Dainik Jagran’s misleading reports portray mass burials in Prayagraj haven’t risen due to Covid. Dainik Jagran alleged that the article carries “false, incorrect, disparaging and scandalous statements” attributing knowledge and complicity on its part to the mass burials.

The original article about mass burials published by Dainik Jagran which was criticised by Alt News, had claimed that the mass burials at the Shringverpur ghat was a regular feature, and not only due to Covid deaths. Dainik Jagran submitted to the court that this was based on facts, and with no intention to sensationalise or refute the fact of Covid deaths. Dainik Jagran submitted that the Alt News article claimed that it received government ads worth over Rs 100 crore in 2014-15 to 2018-19, and was the highest recipient of government ad revenues. The Alt News article had also claimed, “The reports by Dainik Jagran do not corroborate with the ground reality and in fact, are an attempt to normalise the recent deaths caused due to mismanagement and government apathy.”

The defendants, Alt News, submitted that Dainik Jagran’s plea is violative of freedom of press under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution and is a SLAPP suit i.e ‘strategic lawsuit against public participation’.

The court examined if there is even the slightest veracity in the claim of defendants that what they published is true, and based on extensive research and ground reports, the court found that the article shows that the defendants have based the contents of the article on various interviews and research.

“Whether they finally succeed in proving their defence or not is a matter of trial and cannot be determined at this stage. In such a case, where the defence of truth taken by the defendants may stand a chance to succeed at trial, there is no reason for the Court to intervene at such an initial stage and stifle the ever-widening contours of free speech, as developed by the Higher Courts,” observed the court.

“Freedom of speech becomes all the more significant when the subject matter is a matter of larger public concern,” the court added.

The court cited Tata sons Ltd. v Greenpeace International & Anr, 2011 SCC Online Del 466 where the court had held that an interim injunction should not be awarded unless a defence of justification by the defendant was certain to fail at trial level.

The court, thus, dismissed the plaintiff’s application seeking interim injunction against Alt News while holding that there is no certainty that defendant’s defence would fail at trial and there is an equal chance that the defendants may succeed in proving the same.

The order may be read here:

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Three months into the second wave of Covid-19, newspapers continue to document the gulf-like disparity between the government Covid-data and on-ground reports. Such is the difference between the two numbers that media reports claim Surat’s crematorium data records 11 times more Covid-deaths than official figures.

According to Reuters, at least seven cemeteries, including graveyards, in the city conducted more than three-fold cremations and burials in April compared with a year ago. Site visits and logs revealed 6,520 deaths in April compared to 1,980 deaths in the same month last year. Yet, the administration recognises only 585 Covid-deaths for both city and district toll.

Similarly, Surat’s renowned Ashwini Kumar crematorium claimed 3,129 cremations in April, Trustee Prashant Kabrawala told the news agency. Last year in April, the same place conducted 1,200 cremations. Workers at the crematorium reported incessant arrival of bodies even at night with nine gas crematoriums working non-stop.

The consequences of such stress on infrastructure were survived by people at the Kurukshetra crematorium where a chimney collapsed due to overheating as furnaces ran without break for a prolonged period of time. As per records, the facility cremated over 100 bodies a day on several days. Another place in Umra area, recorded 874 deaths in April, 2021 as opposed to 212 bodies in April, 2020.

Meanwhile, four Muslim burial grounds said that workers had to hire mechanical excavators to keep up with demand. The largest one in Surat, Gore Gariba Kabrastan, said burials spiked to an all-time high of 91 bodies in April 2021. According to Secretary and Managing Trustee Aiyub Mohamed Yacoobali the average number of burials prior to the second wave was around 20 burials per month.

Later in May, The Wire reported severe space constraints for two small graveyards in Muslim-populated Juhapura in Ahmedabad district. Steadily decreasing labour force resulted in a six-hour waiting period for a burial. Grave diggers that are joined by volunteers end up working till 3 AM.

Last year, mechanical excavators dug the ground at Namara Chhota Kabrastan as deep as 10 feet. Workers are now digging up the same spots six feet deep to bury this year’s casualties. As for Christian and Parsi communities in the state, members agreed to cremate their dead instead of conventional burials.

Recently, local Gujarati paper Gujarat Samachar announced 783 official deaths recorded during the first five months of the year at Modasa town of Aravalli district. Journalist Deepak Patel, who has been vigilantly recording the gaps between state and newspaper obituaries, stated that in the pre-pandemic era, the town noted an average of 60 deaths per month. This means that there are nearly 483 deaths in 2021 that have not been accounted for by officials.

Moreover, the state government data states 74 Covid-death in the whole Aravalli district between 2020 and 2021, even though there are more than 680 villages in the area. On June 2, Patel noted that 750 bodies were cremated as per Covid protocol at a cremation ground in Navsari, Gujarat within the last 2 months. However, Gujarat official data only recognised 23 people who died due to Covid-19 in the area.

Reports comparing obituary entries and government figures have become routine reports. Most recent data sourced from Gujarat Samchar of June 1 alone shows the significance of such articles in the state:

Aside from this, the newspaper also recorded 34 Covid-deaths in Jamnagar, Rajkot and Gir Somnath districts on Tuesday while government data showed only five deaths in the three places. Similarly, Navsari and Valsad reported five Covid-deaths but government figures did not note any of these deaths.

Using such data, Patel also created a detailed table that compared data collated using Sandesh newspaper reports and Gujarat government information from April 25 to May 24.

What about vaccination?

On May 5, experts had questioned government data that showed 60 percent of the 86,023 people vaccinated by then were administered in Gujarat. Indeed, Gujarat is among the nine states that has vaccinated more than one crore people in its jurisdiction.

However, this huge lead has not helped the state considering Gujarat ranks only third in terms of number of vaccinations.

Maharashtra, leading in terms of vaccination, records 2,30,24,889 doses while Gujarat has conducted only 1,74, 53,553 doses in all. Even compared to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat lags behind by more than 15 lakh doses.

The state is also not exempt from peculiarities such as incidents wherein people who had died years ago have been declared as vaccinated. According to India Today, more than 10 such cases have been observed so far. Among them, a man named Natwarlal Desai died in 2011. Angered families have demanded an investigation into the matter.

As of June 1, Covid19India records 8,10,730 confirmed cases with 29,015 confirmed cases and 9,855 deaths. Including the 60 outstanding deaths mentioned by Gujarat Samachar on Tuesday, this brings the death toll to at least 9,915 deaths.

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A few days before he resigned as the head of the Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortia (INSACOG), the scientific advisory group coordinating India’s genome sequencing work, senior virologist Dr. Shahid Jameel had explained the new surge of the Covid-19 pandemic in India as part of the Explained series in the Indian Express.

During this session Dr Jameel raised three key points:

•         The virus had become more dangerous by the time of the second surge
•         The virus was spreading quickly because we became negligent and large public gatherings were permitted
•         The number of Covid-19 related deaths were being severely undercounted

The second surge: A deadlier virus

He pointed out how figures in April virtually exploded and increased five-fold, “We started around 80,000 and went up to about 4,00,000.” He explained that a steep climb would lead to an elongated plateau. He also called the new, more lethal version of the virus a “formidable foe” and further pointed out how it was allowed to not only spread, but spread quickly, causing the “very, very sharp increase.” He also warned that the climbdown from the peak would be a “prolonged, long-drawn-out process running possibly into July, maybe even into August.”

Complacency and negligence enabled quick spread

Using Cricket analogy, Dr. Jameel says our present predicament is because “we took our eyes off the ball”. He pointed to the September to February period when cases had begun to decline even as India celebrated Dussera and Diwali and the Bihar elections were conducted. He feels this is when we began to abandon caution instead of learning from the experiences of other countries who had peaked before India and then went on to have a second peak. But instead of remaining vigilant, we abandoned caution and held a series of events where a large number of people gathered; from weddings, to state and local body elections to the Kumbh Mela. This coupled with a low rate of vaccination, allowed the new variant to spread quickly.

Under-counting of deaths

On the subject of undercounting of deaths, Dr. Jameel told the Indian Express that going by official Covid death numbers, one arrives at a 15 percent increase in total deaths which would not have overwhelmed crematoria and burial grounds the way we have seen of late. He feels that there might be “5-10 times undercounting of deaths” mainly because of three reasons: Firstly, deaths are not registered properly in our country even during non-emergency situations. Secondly, many people may not have had the opportunity to get tested for Covid, therefore those deaths are not reported as Covid deaths. Thirdly, in case of people dying due to comorbidities, Covid is often not listed as cause of death.

India’s vaccination programme

Dr. Jameel bats for India’s vaccination programme calling it “very sensible” for prioritising frontline workers, the elderly, people with comorbidities before the healthier populace. However, he also addressed complacency among people who feel they do not need the vaccine. He also advises people to focus on the benefits of vaccination instead of risks. He also feels that despite having large-scale vaccine manufacturing facilities in India, we have to acknowledge that they are all run by the private sector and “the private sector does not run on charity.” He also points out poor planning as far as placing vaccine orders goes, that turned us from being a vaccine surplus nation that at one point gave out “66 million doses to 95 countries” to becoming an importer of vaccines. He feels vaccine supply will stabilize by July in light of fresh disbursal of funds to Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech. He feels 7.5 to 10 million doses of the vaccine need to be administered daily in order to effectively vaccinate the population and control the spread of the disease.

Dr. Jameel advises people to remain vigilant and practice Covid appropriate behaviour at all times.

Related:

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