MUMBAI : India must record covid deaths accurately to frame appropriate public policies and track the severity of Omicron as cases surge across the country, Prabhat Jha, professor of epidemiology, University of Toronto, said in an interview.
Jha, who is the lead author of a study on deaths during the pandemic, said India saw an estimated three million covid deaths, which is about six times the official record of the government at just below 500,000.
However, the Indian government has refuted the findings published by Jha and his colleagues. The paper published in the Science journal estimated that for every death (out of three million) 9-10 households, or 30 million people, were affected by the deaths.
The government was not happy with the findings, but it is about fighting the pandemic with the correct tools, Jha said. For a policymaker, this study is crucial as it opens the possibility of implementing important measures in accounting for the dead so that it can give a better picture of future measures, he said.