Ahead Of WHO, India Releases Data On Deaths Due To COVID-19 By 2020

Illustration of COVID-19 in India. (Wikimedia Commons/Government of Odisha)

JAKARTA - India recorded around 475.000 deaths from COVID-19 in 2020 compared to a year earlier, government data released months ahead of schedule on Tuesday showed, as the World Health Organization (WHO) prepares a death estimate whose methodology New Delhi opposes.

Some experts estimate India's true COVID death toll at 4 million, about eight times the official figure, especially as a record wave driven by the Delta variant killed a large number of people in April and May last year. The WHO estimate will be published on Thursday.

Vinod Kumar Paul, a top health official who has overseen India's fight against the pandemic, said there was nothing "dramatic" in the total death toll for 2020, a figure that is absolute, true, and calculated.

He said data showing 8.1 million total deaths in India in 2020 was released by the Registrar General's Office two to three months earlier, due to the concern on the toll of COVID-19 in the country.

"There is a public narrative in the media, based on various modeling estimates, that India's COVID-19 deaths are many times the reported figure, that is not the reality," he told state TV, citing Reuters May 4.

"We now have actual data for 2020, no need to do any modeling now. We will have actual and robust data for 2021 too. Modeling can lead to overestimation, unreasonable estimates," he explained.

The death toll grew more slowly in the country of 1.35 billion people in 2020 compared to the previous two years, data showed.

India officially reported 148.738 COVID-19 deaths in 2020, with the tally jumping to 523.889 on Tuesday, from more than 43 million cumulative infections. Only the United States and Brazil recorded more deaths on Tuesday.

While countries around the world reported only 1.83 million deaths from COVID-19 in 2020, but WHO estimates an excess of at least 3 million deaths globally for the year.

India has said it disagrees with the WHO's methodology, although scientists working on the latest estimates have defended it.