Study says up to 5 million people died due to Coronavirus in India.

 

Indian men hang a sign for a Coronavirus containment area. The Hill/Getty.

A new study claims that up to 5 million people may have died in India due to the Coronavirus. The Hill. The study looked at excess deaths in India since the pandemic began and estimates that between 3.4 and 4.9 million people may have died. Officially India has had just over 400,000 deaths, the third worst hit country in the world after the United States and Brazil. The country was especially hit hard by the so called "delta" variant earlier this year, and has had major problems distributing the vaccine to those who want it. 

The study can be found here.

My Comment:

I've got mixed feelings on the veracity of this study. Even the study's authors admit that the deaths have a huge range from 1 to 6 million with no certain to the numbers. They are also working with incomplete data and are extrapolating things from other countries when the conditions in India are obviously different. 

On the other hand, India's handling of the pandemic was frankly pathetic this year. India had so many cases this year they were one of the few countries that had their medical system collapse under the weight of so many cases. They ran out of live saving supplies, did not vaccinate well and were lulled into complacency by their weaker early outbreaks. 

But the other problem is that the absolutely abysmal state of India's health in normal times as well. We were seeing things there like the "black mold" Mucormycosis secondary infections, that were probably responsible for a large number of deaths. I think that the utterly unsanitary conditions in India probably lead to a lot of other secondary infections and helped the virus to spread. 

I also think that India did have a reason to downplay or lie about the number of deaths they had. Having so many deaths would be a major embarrassment to them and admission that they failed pretty miserably. They don't want to be the county known as the worst in the world when it comes to the Coronavirus response.

On the other hand I also think that the media will hype this report regardless of whether or not it is true. I think there is probably some truth to the report but I don't agree that just because India had major problems that the United States will. Unlike them we have a largely vaccinated vulnerable population, a functioning medial system and much better hygiene and conditions. I think we have gotten fairly close to herd immunity so unlike India I don't see our death count increasing massively.