Centre refutes reports of undercounting COVID deaths as 'baseless & misleading'

Amid the pandemic, there is an outbreak of misinformation and fake news. Recently, there have been some media reports claiming a 'significant undercounting' of actual COVID-19 deaths in the first two waves, alleging that the final death toll may be 'substantially greater' crossing the three million mark. The Centre has, however, clarified the reports as being false.

Debunking the fake news, the Centre said that such reports are fallacious and ill-informed and are not based on facts. It informed that India has a robust system of birth and death reporting which is carried out regularly from the Gram Panchayat level to the District-level and State-level. 

"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 COVID-19 mortality data being submitted by the States at different times are being reconciled in the data of Govt of India on a regular basis," the Press Information Bureau said, adding, "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."

Moreover, the PIB said that there is an incentive in India to report coronavirus deaths as they are entitled to monetary compensation. "Hence, the likelihood of underreporting is less," the government said.

Government calls report on alleged COVID underreporting baseless & misleading

The government's response was to a news report published in the journal Science which estimated that India's true death toll between 1 June 2020, and 1 June 2021, could be between 3.1 million and 3.4 million. It said that the data was collected by three different sources and involved a survey of 137,289 adults.

"These current media reports on ‘significant undercount’ of the actual number of people who have died in India are based on a study which seems biased in nature as only adults with COVID-19 symptoms were captured and cannot be thus representative of the general population. There also appears to be selection bias as the survey is restricted to phone-owning people who can also take out time to answer questions comprehensively," the Centre said.