Researchers from the Center for Global Development and Harvard University estimates 4.7 million people have died in India due to COVID-19.
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| [COVID-19 deaths in India] |
Just a few months ago India saw a devastating rise in infections driven largely by the more infectious Delta Variant of Coronavirus and now the world is seeing a startling new evidence of the ravages of the in India. It was already a dire situation there. The indian government reporting more than 415 thousands people have died. But most infectious disease experts agree the real toll is almost certainly most higher.
The Washington-based Center for Global Development released the most comprehensive study on the impact of the Coronavirus in India and as feared it says India's death toll could be staggering 10 times higher than the official tally. This means 4.7 million additional deaths from thr start of the pandemic until June of this year. Although an exact figure may "remain difficult," the real death toll "is likely to be an order of magnitude larger than the official tally," according to the report.
The study was written by Arvind Subramanian, the former senior economic advisor to the Indian government, and two other experts from the Center for Global Development in Washington and Harvard University.
Some Indian states have upped their COVID-19 death toll in recent months after discovering thousands of previously unreported cases, raising worries that many more deaths may have gone undetected.
Those deaths illustrates the worst human tragedy in the history of modern India. During the British-ruled Indian subcontinent's split into independent India and Pakistan in 1947, gangs of Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other, resulting in the deaths of up to one million people.
Other countries are thought to have undercounted the pandemic's death toll. However, India is considered to have a larger gap because to its 1.4 billion-strong population and the fact that not all fatalities were reported even before the epidemic.