Estimating the death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic in India

Guilmoto, Christophe Z.

doi:10.1101/2021.06.29.21257965

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Other groups have estimated Indian pandemic-related mortality to be 4.9 million as of April 2021 based on a household survey 13 ; 2.2 million by late May 2021 based on well-defined populations 14 ; and, by June 2021, to be 3.2 million 15 to 3.4 million 13 based on excess mortality, 2.7 million based on a governmental hospital informatics system, 15 3.1 to 3.4 million based on a telephone survey, 15 and 4.0 million based on seroprevalence. 13…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preliminary Analysis of Excess Mortality in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Leffler

Lykins

Das³

et al. 2022

The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We studied all-cause mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in 19 Indian states (population 1.27 billion). Excess mortality was calculated by comparison with years 2015 to 2019. The known COVID-19 deaths reported for a state were assumed to be accurate, unless excess mortality data suggested a higher toll. Data from one state were excluded due to anomalies. In several regions, fewer deaths were reported in 2020 than expected. Areas in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal saw spikes in mortality in Spring 2021. The pandemic-related mortality through August 31, 2021, in 18 Indian states was estimated to be 198.7 per 100,000 population (range 146.1–263.8 per 100,000). If these rates apply nationally, then 2.69 million people (range 1.98 to 3.57 million) may have perished in India as a result of the pandemic by August 31, 2021.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preliminary Analysis of Excess Mortality in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Leffler

Lykins

Das³

et al. 2022

The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A recent study derived from three independent data sources estimated a confidence interval of 2.75 to 12.25 for the ratio of excess to Covid-19 deaths (Anand, Sandefur, and Subramanian 2021). Culling mortality data from several sources, however, the most sophisticated demographic analysis to date suggested the number of excess deaths was likely seven times the official number of Covid-19 deaths at the time (Guilmoto 2021). This ratio is consistent with the largest study of the Civil Registration System that placed the number of excess deaths close to 3 million by the end of 2021, more than six times the official tally at the time (Jha et al 2022).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global and National Declines in Life Expectancy: An End-of-2021 Assessment

Heuveline

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Timely, high-quality mortality data have allowed for assessments of the impact of Covid-19 on life expectancies in upper-middle- and high-income countries. Extant data, though imperfect, suggest that the bulk of the pandemic-induced mortality might have occurred elsewhere. This article reports on changes in life expectancies around the world as far as they can be estimated from the evidence available at the end of 2021. The global life expectancy appears to have declined by .92 years between 2019 and 2020 and by another .72 years between 2020 and 2021, but the decline seems to have ended during the last quarter of 2021. Uncertainty about its exact size aside, this represents the first decline in global life expectancy since 1950, the first year for which a global estimate is available from the United Nations. Annual declines in life expectancy (from a 12-month period to the next) appear to have exceeded two years at some point before the end of 2021 in at least 50 countries. Since 1950, annual declines of that magnitude had only been observed in rare occasions, such as Cambodia in the 1970s, Rwanda in the 1990s, and possibly some sub-Saharan African nations at the peak of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

show abstract

“…4 Development Data Lab, Washington, DC, USA. 5 weekly, drawn from ~4000 local electoral areas in the whole of the country, providing a rolling 7-day average of COVID symptoms and deaths. The survey covers >98% of Indian population by geography, with interviews in 11 languages.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID mortality in India: National survey data and health facility deaths

Jha

Deshmukh²,

Tumbe

et al. 2022

Science

124

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

India’s national COVID death totals remain undetermined. Using an independent nationally representative survey of 0.14 million (M) adults, we compared COVID mortality during the 2020 and 2021 viral waves to expected all-cause mortality. COVID constituted 29% (95% confidence interval, 28 to 31%) of deaths from June 2020 to July 2021, corresponding to 3.2 M (3.1 to 3.4) deaths, of which 2.7 M (2.6 to 2.9) occurred in April to July 2021 (when COVID doubled all-cause mortality). A subsurvey of 57,000 adults showed similar temporal increases in mortality, with COVID and non-COVID deaths peaking similarly. Two government data sources found that, when compared to prepandemic periods, all-cause mortality was 27% (23 to 32%) higher in 0.2 M health facilities and 26% (21 to 31%) higher in civil registration deaths in 10 states; both increases occurred mostly in 2021. The analyses find that India’s cumulative COVID deaths by September 2021 were six to seven times higher than reported officially.

show abstract

Estimating the death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic in India

Cited by 9 publications

References 16 publications

Preliminary Analysis of Excess Mortality in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Preliminary Analysis of Excess Mortality in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Global and National Declines in Life Expectancy: An End-of-2021 Assessment

COVID mortality in India: National survey data and health facility deaths

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About