New Delhi [India], July 20 (ANI): NITI Aayog member VK Paul dismissed the study, claiming 11.8 lakh excess deaths in India during the 2020 Covid pandemic, referring to it as “outrageous.”
Paul said that the study used “lot of extrapolation” and added that it was not reflective of the entire nation and that only households in 14 States and UTs were used for the inferences.
“The problem with this is that this survey was going on in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic but that phase covered only 14 states and Union Territories. So what they have done is they have used lot of extrapolation,” Paul said while speaking to ANI on Saturday.
“Small data set, small sub sample, short duration, small number of states and then they applied it all across the nations and that is a methodological issue. And then we have ended up with numbers and results which are not really acceptable; they are untenable and the reason why I said this is that we have for 2020 a clear estimate of the excess deaths. More deaths in 2020 compared to 2019, 29 more deaths compared to 2018. The short point is that a 12 lakh figure pops up through this extrapolation based study on a small sample, which is outrageous,” he added.
He said that the point made by the government was that the study was “poorly conducted” using “assumptions and extrapolation,” which has led to misleading results.
“We believe that excess mortality per se, all cause, is much lower than this for the year in question. And also that all excess mortality, even in our own system, and that number is 4.74 lakh, is really not COVID mortality. So this needs to be seen in a perspective,” Paul said.
“And in a study of this nature, we believe the misleading information that has popped up should be recognised, and the study’s results should really not be accepted by people. We have data which supports the notion that the difference is marked and 12 lakh is an outraneous figure,” he added.
Paul further said that the methodology that the UK researchers have adopted, considering the ongoing survey of NFHS, with the sub-samples of the few states, which they have extrapolated, is “methodologically incorrect.”
“And because of that, the data results which are coming are out of tune. The reason for this is that compared to 2019, excess mortality in India has increased. There is a secular trend that if the population base is bigger, then there is an increase in death. We know that data. And that number is 4,74,000. And there is an increase in registration trend, and the death of COVID, and the death of all the causes. And similarly, if the population base is bigger, then that also comes into it,” he said.
“So, I have no doubt in saying that the figure of 12 lakhs is a completely different figure. True level is markedly lower and we have tried to explain the estimates of the CRS. We should remain on that and this kind of a claim on anybody’s part is really misleading and should not be accepted by anybody,” Paul said.
Referring to some media reports have highlighted the findings from a paper published on July 20 in an academic journal Science Advances on life expectancy during the Covid-19 pandemic in India in 2020, a Ministry of Health and Family Welfare release stated on Saturday that these are based on untenable and unacceptable estimates.
The release stated that the paper erroneously argues for the need for such analyses claiming that vital registration system in low and middle income countries including India is weak. This is far from being correct. The Civil Registration System (CRS) in India is highly robust and captures over 99 per cent of deaths, it added.
“This reporting has constantly increased from 75 per cent in 2015 to over 99 per cent in 2020. Data from this system shows death registration has increased by 4.74 lakh in the year 2020 compared to 2019. There was a similar increase of 4.86 lakh and 6.90 lakh in death registration in the year 2018 and 2019 over the respective previous years. Notably, all excess deaths in a year in the CRS are not attributable to the pandemic. Excess number is also due to an increasing trend of death registration in CRS (it was 92 per cent in 2019) and a larger population base in the succeeding year,” the release stated.
“It is strongly asserted that an excess mortality of about 11.9 lakh deaths reported in the Science Advances paper in 2020 over the previous year is a gross and misleading overestimate. It is noteworthy that excess mortality during the pandemic means increase in deaths due to all causes, and cannot be equated with deaths that were directly caused by Covid-19,” it added.
The release further said that the all-cause excess mortality in 2020 compared with the previous year in India is markedly less than the 11.9 lakh deaths reported in the Science Advances paper The paper published today is methodologically flawed and shows results that are untenable and unacceptable. (ANI)
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