India Wrangles with WHO Over COVID-19 Death Figures

May 16, 2022

(SciDevNet) – A WHO report, claiming that nearly a third of 15 million estimated global deaths from COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 occurred in India, is being hotly contested by the Indian government for its reliance on so-called “excess deaths” data. The WHO says excess mortality is calculated as the “difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years”. It includes deaths associated with COVID-19 directly or indirectly — as a result of the pandemic’s impact on health systems and society. (Read More)