There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic was a devastating blow to millions around the world and a tremendous strain on the health systems globally. Millions today continue to pick up pieces of their lives dislodged after losing a loved one due to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.
A healthcare worker collects a nasal swab sample of a prisoner for the COVID-19 testing prior to him appearing before the Civil Court, in Patna on Monday. ANI
The deadly virus left children without parents, and parents with children. The pandemic ripped through every single home and left its horrific scar.
The health strain was coupled with an economic strain because of the global lockdowns. People tested positive for COVID-19, some people recovered, and some died. We witnessed death all around the world, even many deaths around us.
During the second wave in India, reports of deaths linked to COVID-19 filled the reams of newspapers and anchor bytes of television channels. It was sad to read and hear about the difficulties that people were experiencing because of the strain on our health systems. The pandemic did not only overwhelm Indian healthcare but wreaked havoc across the globe.
Global health systems failed because the global health body, the World Health Organisation (WHO) failed in its primary responsibility to detect and prevent the spread of the coronavirus that was first identified in Wuhan, China.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 14.9 million people died of Covid-19 or of the pandemic’s impact on the global health system between January 2020 and December 2021. The WHO data is close to 10 million over the 5.4 million deaths officially reported by countries across the world.
Intriguingly, the WHO data puts India’s Covid-19-related deaths at 4.7 million, when India’s official Covid-19 recorded deaths as of today are 524,024.
The WHO data on the report on Covid-19 by member states on its website shows:
In China, from 3 January 2020 to 5:31 pm CEST, 6 May 2022, there have been 1,210,601 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 15,372 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 25 April 2022, a total of 3,364,169,286 vaccine doses have been administered.
In India, from 3 January 2020 to 5:31 pm CEST, 6 May 2022, there have been 43,094,938 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 524,002 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 2 May 2022, a total of 1,894,676,946 vaccine doses have been administered.
The recent WHO data on excess Covid-19 deaths used a methodology for member states based on a systematic collection of data regarding the fatalities. India too has a similar system. India has a robust Civil Registration System (CRS).
The Union Health Ministry on 5 May, 2022, vehemently objected to the mathematical models used by the WHO for projecting excess mortality estimates linked to the pandemic given the availability of authentic data, saying the validity and robustness of the models used and the methodology of data collection were questionable.
India had also informed WHO that given the availability of authentic data published through the Civil Registration System by the Registrar General of India, mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India.
“India firmly believes that such robust and accurate data generated through the legal framework of a member state must be respected, accepted, and used by WHO rather than relying on less than accurate mathematical projection based on non-official sources of data,” the statement added.
However, while the world mourns over the death of 6,275,035 million due to Covid-19, there was no definition from the WHO as to how can a fatality be ascribed to Covid-19, and till now there is no definition for death due to Covid-19.
The global health body has not defined as to what constitutes the ‘Covid-19’ death. If the nature of Covid-19 death does not have a global definition then it is presumptuous to expect a nation to classify deaths as ‘Covid’ or ‘non-Covid’ by the WHO expectations, and hence it is prudent for India to its own definition of classifying Covid-19 deaths.
The issue of underreporting or overreporting a death as Covid-19 does not arise since there is no scientific definition by the global health body that categorizes a death as a Covid-19 death or non-Covid-19 death.
Therefore, the methodology adopted by the WHO is flawed as mathematical models should not be used to project excess mortality numbers for India especially when India has a robust CRS system.
Let me explain in simple terms; If Mr. A was to get Covid-19 positive today and dies after two weeks will it be a Covid-19 death? Or if he dies after four to six months will that be considered to be a COVID-19 death?
In India, all data was looked at and a conclusion came out that 95 percent of the deaths that occurred after testing positive for Covid-19 were occurring in the first four weeks. Therefore, a cut-off of 30-days was set for the definition of a Covid-19 death.
On India’s asking WHO about what their data is based on and its methodology, WHO replied that it is based on “states’ websites, and RTIs filed by people across the world.” Shockingly, they have conveniently ignored India’s CRS data.
Excess mortality is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would have been expected in the absence of the pandemic, based on data from earlier years.
Excess mortality includes deaths associated with Covid-19 directly, due to the disease, and indirectly due to the pandemic’s impact on health systems and society.
While India has reported 524,002 deaths as on May 6th 2022, China reported only 15,372 deaths. In the WHO Excess COVID-19 death report, Dr Tedros and his team would like the world to believe that India underreported the deaths and it should be estimated at over 4.7 million. But the WHO does not raise an alarm bell on China’s excess mortality death numbers, in fact, it shows China’s excess Covid-19 death numbers as one of the lowest in the world. China’s death rate is reportedly 62-times better than Australia’s.
The WHO is ready to accept only 15,372 Covid-19 deaths reported by China even when the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic is Wuhan, China but opines that India has underreported its Covid-19 deaths.
China followed a model of its own definition of COVID-19 deaths, India too followed its own definition of Covid-19 deaths. The WHO does not have a categoric definition for a COVID-19 death, but according to the WHO, China’s Covid-19 deaths are one of the lowest in the world.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the WHO have been toeing China’s line of defence since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It is not surprising even now it plans to pat China on the back and question India’s integrity on the COVID-19 death reportage.
The writer is a BJP leader and the founder of GoaChronicle. Views expressed