Explained: Why India Is Rejecting The WHO Report On Covid Deaths In India

The World Health Organisation has said that India saw 10 times more deaths than the official data. The WHO estimates more than 4.7 million people died in India due to Coronavirus. Almost half of the deaths that are yet to be counted were in India, stated the report.

WHO reported that nearly 15 million people died by COVID-19 or by its impact on health systems in the past 2 years. The data is more than double the official death toll of 6 million.

Strongly objecting to the report, the Indian government rejected the claim citing the use of some mathematical models and stated "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.¡±

What is India¡¯s objection?

Agencies

Highlighting the methods used by WHO to identify countries into Tier I and II, India expressed its concerns about the inconsistencies in the criteria and assumptions for placing India into Tier Tier countries.

With an effective and robust statutory system, the accurate collection of Mortality Data is done in India and thus doesn't deserve to be placed in Tier II countries. WHO is yet to respond to India¡¯s contention.

What is the basis of classifying countries?

According to TOI, the classification of countries as Tier I and Tier II is based on the available mortality data. Tier I status is provided if complete and nationally representative monthly mortality data for the specified period is available to WHO.

While Tier 2 status is provided when complete data is not available to WHO and its uses alternative available data including subnational data to conduct the study.

Is it possible?

Reuters

According to a report published in the Indian Express, several population scientists said that missing such large numbers of death was extremely unlikely. As per WHO numbers, does India miss 90% of all Covid-19 deaths in the first 2 years of the pandemic? Very unlikely!

The report further tells that India¡¯s official Covid-19 death stands at 3.32 lakh in 2021. This implies that India missed almost 92% of the Covid-19 deaths in that year. Is it?

As per the WHO report, 8.3 lakh of the 81.2 lakh people died of covid-19 and non-Covid deaths were around 73 lakh in 2020. The total death toll in India for a year has never been below 80 lakh since 2007 till when data is available.

What is wrong with the WHO's methodology?

Agencies

Questioning the own admission of WHO with regards to the use of data in the mathematical model study. Some of the websites and media reports were used by WHO to collect data of over 17 states. The government stated, "This reflects a statistically unsound and scientifically questionable methodology of data collection for making excess mortality projections in case of India".

Citing questionable multiple models on their validity and robustness, India claimed that WHO projected different excess mortality numbers for India citing multiple models.

What did WHO say?

WHO said that the new data provided by India is not examined fully, which has brought down the estimates by WHO and issued its own mortality figures for all causes of death in 2020.

Furthermore, WHO suggested that a disclaimer may be added to the report highlighting the ongoing discussions with India.

The test positivity rate of covid in India was never uniform at any point in time. WHO¡¯s model fails to take into account the variability in positive rate.

What is excess mortality?

Agency

In connection with the pandemic, excess mortality is used to quantify the direct and indirect impacts of Covid-19.

While in a no-pandemic scenario, it is defined as the difference between the total number of deaths estimated for a specific place and given time period and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic.

What are other findings of the report?

The outcomes of the report are significant as it is shown that most of the excess death i.e. 84% are concentrated in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas, in which only 10 countries hold 68% of excess death.

Middle-income countries account for 81% of the 14.9 million excess deaths during the 2020-21 period, with high-income and low-income countries each accounting for 15% and 4%, respectively.

The global death toll was higher for men ((57% ) than for women (43%).

Alongside India, Russia, Indonesia, the USA, Brazil, Mexico and Peru are among the countries with the highest total excess deaths. While China, Australia Japan and Norway were among the countries with low excess mortality rates.

Inputs from TOI, The Indian Express and agencies.

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