A controversy has erupted over a World Health Organization (WHO) report, released a day ago, claiming that Covid-19 deaths in India were nearly 10 times the figures reported by the government, a statement vehemently rejected by the Centre.
The WHO said the coronavirus pandemic caused nearly 15 million deaths worldwide and nearly a third of the excess deaths globally — 4.74 million — took place in India.Let’s take a deep dive into understanding the data.What the WHO has said:The global health body said it developed an ‘innovative’ and ‘robust’ methodology and availed a ‘completely transparent approach’ to gather data on the Covid deaths across the world. According to the WHO, the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic caused 14.9 million (14,910,195 to be precise) deaths across the world between January 1, 2020, and December 31.The officially reported global toll due to Covid-19 is 5.5 million, leaving us with 9.4 million excess mortality numbers that were unaccounted for.
