“All countries to some extent have faced this problem of accurately classifying Covid-related deaths, but I think in India the problem is quite acute,” said Mukherjee.īut serology surveys, which test for antibodies in the immune system to indicate if someone has been exposed to the virus, give scientists a better measure of how many people may be infected in reality. Poorer residents might not be able to afford the time off work to get tested, or to travel to a test center.Ī healthcare worker collects swab samples at a Covid-19 testing center in Mumbai, India, on April 22. There are also different case reporting structures across different cities and states, and testing may be less accessible in rural areas. The most obvious is that asymptomatic patients – also called “silent infections” – may simply never know they were infected, and so never get tested. There are a few reasons for the insufficient testing, according to Bhramar Mukherjee, professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan. “That means there are lots of people out there who are infected and not being detected just because of the capacity of testing … we will know only later how many was really the number of people infected.” Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist for the World Health Organization (WHO).īut “that’s still not sufficient because the national average positivity rate is about 15% – in some cities like Delhi it’s up to 30% or higher,” she said Monday. Around this time last year, the country was testing fewer than half a million people per day – now, “they are doing close to 2 million tests a day,” said Dr. ![]() India’s testing capacity has increased dramatically since the first wave. ![]() “There’s a missing person in every family that I can think of.” “I don’t think any family has been spared a Covid death,” said Laxminarayan. The death toll could peak at more than 13,000 a day – more than four times the current daily death toll, the predictions show. The country’s daily death toll is now projected to continue climbing until mid-May, according to prediction models from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated the low figures as boosting “the confidence of people,” and predicted that “the entire country will emerge victorious in the battle against Covid-19,” according to a press release in August.Ī man stands amid burning pyres of Covid-19 victims at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, on April 26. “This time, the mortality figures are probably serious underestimates, and what we’re seeing on the ground is many more deaths, than what has been officially reported.”ĬNN has reached out to the country’s health ministry for comment about the claims of underreporting.Īs the first wave began to ebb in September last year, the government pointed to its low death rate as a sign of its success in handling the outbreak, and to support its decision to lift some restrictions. ![]() “Last year we estimated that only one in about 30 infections were being caught by testing, so the reported cases are a serious underestimate of true infections,” he said. India is spiraling deeper into Covid-19 crisis. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images) Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images ![]() A new wave of the pandemic has totally overwhelmed the country's healthcare services and has caused crematoriums to operate day and night as the number of victims continues to spiral out of control. With recorded cases crossing 300,000 a day, India has more than 2 million active cases of Covid-19, the second-highest number in the world after the U.S. NEW DELHI, INDIA - APRIL 24: A man performs the last rites of his relative who died of the Covid-19 coronavirus disease as other funeral pyres are seen burning during a mass cremation held at a crematorium on Apin New Delhi, India.
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