Excess death figures from Bihar indicate it under-counted Covid-19 deaths hugely.
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Excess deaths data - Bihar Covid deaths 48-X higher
- The story: In the pandemic phase, there have been claims and counter-claims about the veracity of government data on deaths. Independent experts have collected total deaths data from reliable sources (govt and private) and calculated the "Excess Deaths".
- Bihar: The figures from Bihar, based on deaths registered in the state’s Civil Registration System (CRS) between January 2015 and May 2021, present one of the largest deviations in excess mortality in India, so far.
- There were at least 2,51,000 excess deaths registered since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak (from March 2020 to May 2021)
- This is 48.6 times the official number of confirmed coronavirus deaths (5,163) in the state in the same time period
- Of these, over 1,26,000 such excess deaths were reported in the first five months of 2021 against 3,766 reported Covid-19 deaths in the same period – resulting in an undercount factor of 33.7 in 2021.
- CRS is a national system of recording all births and deaths, under the Office of the Registrar General of India, implemented on the ground by state governments
- Sample Registration System (SRS) – an annual survey conducted by the Office of the Registrar General in India
- What is “Excess death”: It is a generalised term referring to the total number of deaths occurring due to all causes during a crisis that is above and beyond what would have been expected under regular conditions. Not all such excess deaths may be due to Covid-19, but during a pandemic such major deviations in fatalities is likely to be either directly or indirectly caused by the outbreak. The CRS data from the pre-pandemic period (January 2015 to February 2020) was averaged to establish an all-cause mortality baseline, which was compared to the deaths registered from March 2020 onwards, resulting in the number of “excess deaths”. Internationally and domestically, such data has provided vital information on the true toll of the pandemic on human life.
- Finding the truth: During the Covid-19 outbreak, data from CRS was being used to count the number of deaths that would not have occurred had the pandemic never happened. Analysis conducted by many news organisations estimated the undercount factor for different states, cities and districts in the country.
- Such estimates have been arrived at for Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, and have shown a wide range of undercount factors — as little as 0.42 times in Kerala to 43 times in UP (based on data from 24 of the state’s 75 districts).
- Bihar, however, showed the highest undercount factor in the country so far.
- NITI index: This is expected, as the state ranks the second lowest in the country (after UP) in Niti Aayog’s Health Index, 2020, and despite being home to 9% of the country’s population, has seen 9,649 confirmed deaths due to Covid (just 2.2% of the total 4,32,138 fatalities till August 19).
- Global scene: Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that Covid-19 deaths may be as much as two-three times the officially reported numbers. But such analyses do suffer from some shortcomings
- Historically, not all deaths in India are registered under CRS, which is why the Sample Registration System (SRS) – an annual survey conducted by the Office of the Registrar General in India – is considered the primary source of annual estimates of deaths.
- The registered deaths are not necessarily domiciliary, while deaths, if registered at all, may not be reported promptly.
- Another factor in the increase in CRS numbers may be the improvement in registration of deaths; the CRS’ 2019 annual report on “vital statistics” said that while only 20.7% deaths were medically certified, registration of deaths in India has improved to more than 90%.
- CRS data from Bihar shows fluctuations – there were 2,04,093 registered deaths in 2015, but it dropped to 177,021 in 2016, then spiked to 2,61,425 in 2017, before dropping again in 2019 (2,13,989).
- Summary: The government of Bihar has denied all such analysis, and claims that it was actively encouraging families to claim compensation in case of Covid-19 deaths.
#Pandemic #Bihar #Covid #Governmentdecisions #Healthandmedicine #Statistics #Polity #NitishKumar #ExcessDeaths
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