Ronan Kelly
Retired 2020
India Is Undercounting Its COVID-19 Deaths. This Is How.
04/08/2020
Priyanka Pulla
...
COVID-19 deaths are being underreported across India, an investigation by The Wire Science has found. Such non-reporting falls broadly into two categories.
In the first category, a city counts only those deaths of patients who tested positive for the virus – i.e. ‘confirmed COVID-19 deaths’ – in its official toll. When patients who have symptoms of COVID-19 but aren’t tested, test negative or have an inconclusive result die, their deaths aren’t included.
While epidemiologists refer to such deaths variously as ‘suspected COVID-19 deaths’, ‘probable COVID-19 deaths’ and ‘clinically diagnosed COVID-19 deaths’ – based on several criteria – this article will use the blanket term ‘suspected deaths’ for all of them.
...
Despite there being other ways to diagnose COVID-19 patients, most Indian states are not reporting suspected deaths. The Wire Science spoke to municipal officials, health-department officials and officials from the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme in seven states and union territories: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Puducherry, all of whom said they weren’t including suspected deaths in their published COVID-19 death tolls.
And this isn’t the only kind of underreporting there is. Some Indian cities and states are going a step ahead and not reporting all confirmed deaths either. These include Gujarat’s Vadodara and Surat, and all of Telangana. Together, both kinds of underreporting risk giving a false picture of COVID-19’s real impact in India.
...
In similar vein, Telangana’s health minister Eatala Rajender said on May 16 that the state wouldn’t include deaths due to comorbidities in its COVID-19 toll – in keeping with ICMR guidelines for death certification. But Rajender’s interpretation is the opposite of what ICMR has said: that comorbidities should not be considered to be causes of death.
As a result, the state’s reported death toll on July 31 – 519 – may be the result of a massive undercount. The day’s media bulletin said 53.8% of deaths in the state were due to comorbidities, which means the state may actually have confirmed 963 deaths by then.
...
https://science.thewire.in/health/in...undercounting/
04/08/2020
Priyanka Pulla
...
COVID-19 deaths are being underreported across India, an investigation by The Wire Science has found. Such non-reporting falls broadly into two categories.
In the first category, a city counts only those deaths of patients who tested positive for the virus – i.e. ‘confirmed COVID-19 deaths’ – in its official toll. When patients who have symptoms of COVID-19 but aren’t tested, test negative or have an inconclusive result die, their deaths aren’t included.
While epidemiologists refer to such deaths variously as ‘suspected COVID-19 deaths’, ‘probable COVID-19 deaths’ and ‘clinically diagnosed COVID-19 deaths’ – based on several criteria – this article will use the blanket term ‘suspected deaths’ for all of them.
...
Despite there being other ways to diagnose COVID-19 patients, most Indian states are not reporting suspected deaths. The Wire Science spoke to municipal officials, health-department officials and officials from the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme in seven states and union territories: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Puducherry, all of whom said they weren’t including suspected deaths in their published COVID-19 death tolls.
And this isn’t the only kind of underreporting there is. Some Indian cities and states are going a step ahead and not reporting all confirmed deaths either. These include Gujarat’s Vadodara and Surat, and all of Telangana. Together, both kinds of underreporting risk giving a false picture of COVID-19’s real impact in India.
...
In similar vein, Telangana’s health minister Eatala Rajender said on May 16 that the state wouldn’t include deaths due to comorbidities in its COVID-19 toll – in keeping with ICMR guidelines for death certification. But Rajender’s interpretation is the opposite of what ICMR has said: that comorbidities should not be considered to be causes of death.
As a result, the state’s reported death toll on July 31 – 519 – may be the result of a massive undercount. The day’s media bulletin said 53.8% of deaths in the state were due to comorbidities, which means the state may actually have confirmed 963 deaths by then.
...
https://science.thewire.in/health/in...undercounting/