The number of “excess deaths” registered by the Civil Registration System in Haryana ever since the covid-19 pandemic hit (from April 2020 to May 2021) was 60,397 which is 7.3 times the official reported figure of 8,303 covid-19 deaths for the same period.
The high number was largely due to the deaths registered in April 2021(28,276) and May 2021(46,108). In this period, which is coincided with the second wave the deaths were around 46,283 compared with the registered covid-19 tally of 5,148 leading to an undercount factor of 9. The overall tally in Haryana is 9,556.
The “excess deaths” were calculated based on the month-wise number of deaths registered online from January 2018 to May 2021, which was accessed by ‘The Hindu’. Not all deaths would be related to the covid-19 but a bulk of them are during the pandemic.
The undercount factor(7.3) and the excess deaths for Haryana(60,397) were lower compared with those from Madhya Pradesh (23.8 and 1,92,044) in the same period and for which complete data have been made available so far. Excess deaths have also been estimated for Rajsthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Gujrat.
A look at the gender of the deaths in Haryana from 2018 to 2021 shows that the proportion of deaths among females went up marginally from 36.5 during the pre-covid years to 37.1% and 39.7% in 2020 and 2021.
Various national media claimed that in Assam also the actual deaths between August 2020 to November 2020, was shown 30 times higher than the recorded number of covid deaths. In other states also the number of death is seen very high during the pandemic. Why is it happening? Are the central and state governments are trying to hide the actual number of death?
