India’s deaths 10 times the official Covid-19 toll: Research

A relative mourns as he performs the last rites of a Covid-19 victim, in Guwahati, Assam. File pic/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.

On Tuesday morning, the Union health ministry confirmed 374 daily fatalities, taking the total toll to 4,14,482, while cases increased by 30,093. Most experts believe the official toll is a vast undercount, but the government has dismissed those concerns as exaggerated and misleading. The report released on Tuesday estimated excess deaths - the gap between those recorded and those that would have been expected - to be between 30 lakh to 47 lakh 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, published by Arvind Subramanian, the government's former chief economic advisor, and two other researchers at the Centre for Global Development and Harvard University, said the count could have missed deaths occurring in overwhelmed hospitals or while health care was delayed or disrupted, especially during the devastating peak surge earlier this year.

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The report also estimated that nearly 20 lakh Indians died during the first surge in infections last year and said not "grasping the scale of the tragedy in real time" may have "bred collective complacency that led to the horrors" of the surge earlier this year.

Over the last few months, some Indian states have increased their Covid-19 death toll after finding thousands of previously unreported cases, raising concerns that many more fatalities were not officially recorded.

188cr doses needed for 18-plus: Govt

A total of 188 crore doses of vaccines are needed to vaccinate 94 crore 18-plus population in India, the Centre said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Jharkhand once again urged the Centre to allot at least 95 per cent of the shots through the government route, citing "challenging circumstances" amid limited availability of private hospitals.

3,11,74,322
Total no. of Coronavirus cases in india so far

4,14,482
Total no. of deaths due to the virus in India so far

4,06,130
Total no. of active cases in India

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