India’s actual death toll from Covid-19 could range between 1.3 million to a staggering 5 million, if you go by numbers derived from research models and local authority data. Even by the most conservative estimate, the real toll of the pandemic has been vastly underestimated because of a combination of under-counting, a backlog in the civil registration system and a lack of testing leading to Covid deaths being classified under other conditions like heart disease.
States have started clearing some of the backlog in recording Covid data. Maharashtra became the latest state to carry out a reconciliation exercise on Tuesday, adding 2,497 cases and 3,509 deaths to the total tally.
