Covid 19 India: Even record death toll may hide extent of India’s Covid crisis

Data vs cremations Counting struggles Bodies piling up at crematoriums and burial grounds across India are sparking concerns that the death toll from a ferocious new Covid-19 wave may be much higher than official records, underplaying the scale of a resurgence that is overwhelming the country’s medical system.Several cities across the South Asian nation have reported shocking details of bodies, wrapped in protective gear and identified by hospitals as virus-related deaths, lined up outside crematoriums for hours.Accounts collated by Bloomberg from relatives of the dead and workers and eyewitnesses at crematoriums in at least five cities indicate that the real number of Covid fatalities could be significantly higher than the deaths being reported by local government health departments.Relatives pray during the funeral of a Covid-19 fatality in a cremation hall at the Nigambodh Ghat crematorium in New Delhi on April 19.On Thursday, India blew past the global record of daily new infections with 314,835 new cases. For others the cause of death listed is often anodyne — old age or heart attack — leading experts to estimate that only between 20%-30% of all deaths in India are properly medically certified.News reports from across India suggest that a combination of poor testing and a health system that is inundated by the crush of those sickened by the virus has meant that counting Covid deaths accurately remains a struggle even a year into the health crisis.Not capturing death data accurately “creates the misconception that media is showcasing anecdotal cases and the overall situation is under control,” said Himanshu Sikka, the chief strategy officer, health at IPE Global, a development consulting firm. “This damages future preparations and measures needed for a possible third wave.”In Lucknow, the capital city of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, the official number of Covid deaths between April 11 to April 16 stood at 145.However, just two of the city’s main crematoriums reported more than 430 or three times as many cremations under Covid-19 protocol in that period, according to eyewitnesses and workers, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak to reporters. Even so, it took over three hours to find a spot that was far away enough to tolerate the heat emanating from the other burning bodies.He was not allowed to use the electric furnace set aside for virus deaths because the dead man didn’t have a report showing he’d tested positive for the virus even though he had a doctor’s prescription for Covid-19 treatment. That likely meant their deaths weren’t attributed to Covid.In the industrial city of Surat, located in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, the head of a trust that runs crematoriums said at least 100 bodies have been brought in each day for the last 10 days, wrapped in the Covid-mandated protective covering. Surat’s municipal body on April 19 reported only 28 virus deaths.“Structures within the furnace, like the metal frames and the chimney, are melting and falling apart,” Kamlesh Sailor said. Some of the deaths in Lucknow which are included as deaths because of Covid-19 are actually normal deaths which would have been counted wrongly.”There was no immediate comment from the spokesperson of the Gujarat government.Sanjeev Gupta, a freelance photojournalist in the central city of Bhopal, said he has consistently witnessed 80 to 120 bodies being cremated each day last week at just one of the city’s three cremation centers set aside for Covid cases. According to news reports, the state government said the deaths were “suspected Covid” but couldn’t be confirmed because of a shortage of testing kits and lab facilities.The speed with which the pandemic swept across the world meant that even in countries with sophisticated health systems, mortality was difficult to accurately assess, especially in the early days. Some governments, including Russia, had last year attributed the cause of deaths in some of these patients to the pre-existing condition, raising doubts about the veracity of official mortality data.Tens of thousands of probable Covid-19 deaths in the US weren’t captured by official statistics between March and May 2020, a study in July found.A board indicates ‘nil’ available beds at a hospital in New Delhi on April 21.India’s Union Health Ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment.Even without accurate figures, the deadly impact of India’s second wave is hard to miss.Four pages of the local language Sandesh newspaper in Rajkot, another Gujarat city, were covered with obituaries on Wednesday. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/even-record-death-toll-may-hide-extent-of-indias-covid-crisis/articleshow/82213444.cms