​​ Read the beginning of the article Study: India suffere | Dr Naomi R Wolf

​​ Read the beginning of the article
Study: India suffered up to 4.7 million excess COVID deaths

A second study, also published on Tuesday, estimated that India had suffered between 3.4 million and 4.7 million excess deaths during the pandemic – about 10 times the official death toll. The Indian government only counts patients who die in hospital with a positive test as COVID-19 deaths.

The study, whose three authors included Arvind Subramanian, the government’s former chief economic adviser, examined three sources of data: all-cause mortality statistics from seven large states; seroprevalence studies; and household surveys carried out by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy.

While each of the three sources yielded different estimates, the paper’s authors said “they all point to significantly greater deaths than the official estimates” and indicated that India’s “first wave was more lethal than is widely believed.”

“What is tragically clear is that too many people, in the millions rather than the hundreds of thousands, may have died,” the authors said.

There were 10.073 million all-cause deaths in India last year, only 1.49 percent or roughly 147,000 more than the previous year’s 9.926 million.

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