Could COVID-19 Deaths in India Actually Be Five Times the Official Figure?

In a discussion with Karan Thapar for The Wire Dr. Hemant Shewade and Dr. Giridara Gopal, two community physicians with a deep interest in public health, who earlier wrote an Op-ed for The Hindu on the 10th of August, say that the under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths will get worse as the incidence of Covid-19 spreads beyond metropolitan centres like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai into tier 2 and tier 3 towns and then, beyond that, into rural India. As Dr. Gopal, who is also a member of the India COVID Apex Research Team, put it: “This may be more pronounced in rural and semi-urban areas where there is poor access to health facilities and/or qualified medical doctors.”
Doctors Shewade and Gopal explained to The Wire the largest element of under-reported Covid-19 deaths came from “suspected Covid-19 deaths occurring at home or during transit or in non-Covid hospitals”. As they put it: “Outside designated Covid-19 facilities, there could be many instances of suspected Covid-19 being the cause of death which may not be captured.”
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