India's Covid-19 death toll nears 100,000 eight months after first case

India’s Covid-19 death count has reached close to the 100,000-mark, eight months after the first case was reported and less than seven months after the first death in the country. Only two other countries— the US and Brazil—have seen more Covid deaths than India. Around 68 per cent of the deaths were concentrated in just five states: Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The numbers, however, show that the death per million population at 72 is comparatively much lower for India than most other countries and also less alarming against the global average of 127. India’s Covid fatality rate is pegged at 1.6 per cent with recent surveys suggesting a declining trend in fatality-case ratio during the pandemic months.      

Even so, Covid deaths account for 73 per cent of the total medically certified deaths due to respiratory diseases in the country as of 2018.

In all this, India’s drawn flak from global bodies including The Lancet for Covid interpretations. A recent editorial in <The Lancet> said that the Indian government was putting too positive a spin on the Covid-19 situation in the country and was straying from scientific evidence.