CRS report hints at a drop in Covid-19 death counting in the first year of pandemic

India registered over 8.12 million deaths in 2020, a 6.2% increase over the previous year, according to a new government report that experts say also hints at a drop in death reporting in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic marked by stringent 3-month lockdown and several restrictions.

The 2020 report from the Centre’s Civil Registration System that seeks to record all births and deaths comes at a time when the Union health ministry has trashed several scientific studies and a WHO report suggesting that India has under-counted Covid-19 deaths.

The ministry has asserted multiple times that India had in place a robust system of death reporting.

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From the 2017 death count, nearly 4,90,000 additional deaths were recorded in the next 12 months resulting in 6.95 million deaths in 2018. Over the next 12 months, the count increased by another 6,90,000 deaths resulting in the registration of 7.64 million deaths in 2019.

Experts are of the opinion that the count of excess deaths is likely to increase year on year because of a rise in population and improved reporting with greater levels of public awareness about the need to register all deaths. This clearly was not the case in 2020.

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of new deaths registered dropped to 4,80,000 with many states admitting that they faced problems with death registration due to the Covid-19 pandemic during which people didn’t come forward for such registration and state governments used their staff for other tasks.

“Difficulties in reporting events were faced by the general public due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Uttar Pradesh in the report. “Covid-19 is one of the major causes of under-reporting,” noted Telangana. “Preoccupation of Registrars and other functionaries with other duties is among the reasons,” added Kerala.

Almost every state admitted that the death-counting system was far from ideal due to lack of staff, absence of awareness in rural areas and poor accessibility in remote corners and hilly terrains. In fact, in eight large states including Uttar Pradesh, less than 50% of the deaths are registered within the first 21 days.

Most of the states observed that they were understaffed and poorly equipped to register all the deaths happening in the states.