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‘Without any basis’: India junks report of ‘five to seven times’ higher Covid-related deaths

India death toll

COVID19

‘Without any basis’: India junks report of ‘five to seven times’ higher Covid-related deaths

The central government has refuted a report by The Economist which claimed that India’s covid death toll is ” five to seven times’ higher than the official count. Without naming the publication, the union health ministry said the report is ” speculative” and “without any basis”.

“The unsound analysis of the said article is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence,” the ministry said in a release.




The studies used by the magazine to estimate the mortality are not validated tools for determining the death rate of any country or region, it added.

Listing out the reasons for junking the article, ministry pointed out that it relies upon studies done by psephology groups, Prashnam and C-Voter that were never associated with public health research.

On their websites, both Prashnam and C-Voter have mentioned that their field of work extends to research beyond psephology.

It t said the government has been transparent in its approach to Covid data management. In order to avoid any inconsistency in the number of deaths being reported, the ministry said, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) issued guidelines as early as in May 2020.

The Economist is not the first publication to claim that India has underreported its Covid-19 deaths. Last month, The New York Times had reported that India’s toll could be as high as 6 lakh by conservative estimates, and up to 42 lakh in the worst case scenario.


Also Read: Bharat Biotech to release trial data in July; slams Covaxin-Covishield antibody study


India’s Covid-19 caseload climbed to 29,359,155 on Saturday after 84,332 new infections were logged in the last 24 hours. This is the first time in more than two months that the daily cases went below the 90,000-mark.


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