Under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths are baseless and Misleading: Health Ministry

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has clarified that media reports about under reporting of deaths in the first and second Covid-19 wave are incorrect and misleading.

The Ministry has released a press statement in which it has said that there have been some media reports alleging a ‘significant undercount’ of the actual number of people who have died in India due to COVID-19 in the first two waves, claiming that the final toll may be ‘substantially greater’ crossing the figures of about three million.

“It is clarified that such media reports are fallacious and ill-informed. They are not based on facts and are mischievous in nature. India has a very robust system of birth & death reporting which is based on a Statute and is carried out regularly from the Gram Panchayat level to the District-level and State level. The whole exercise is carried out under the overall oversight of the Registrar General of India (RGI),” the Ministry said in its clarification note.

It added, “Moreover, Government of India has a very comprehensive definition to classify COVID deaths, based on globally acceptable categorisation. All deaths are being independently reported by States, and are being compiled centrally. The backlog in COVID19 mortality data being submitted by the States at different times are being reconciled in the data of Govt of India on a regular basis. A large number of States have regularly reconciled their death numbers and have reported arrear deaths in a broadly transparent manner. Therefore, to project that deaths have been under-reported is without basis and without justification.”

The Ministry said that it is clarified that there is an extreme difference in COVID case load and linked mortality between Indian States.

“Any assumptions putting all States in one envelope would mean mapping skewed data of outliers together with States reporting lowest mortality which is bound to stretch the median towards higher and wrong results,” it said.