India’s official death toll from the coronavirus reached 400,000 on Friday, though experts say the actual number of dead could have reached one million or even higher.
“Undercounting of deaths is something that has happened across states, mostly because of lags in the system, so that means we will never have a true idea of how many people we lost in this second wave,” said Rijo M John, a professor at the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in the southern city of Kochi.
India added 100,000 deaths in 39 days, as a brutal second wave of infections swept across cities and into the vast countryside where millions remain vulnerable without a single shot of vaccine. India’s death toll is also the third-highest globally.
Although cases have declined steadily since hitting a peak in May, government officials and experts have warned that a third wave looms, as the country slowly reopens and a new variant, locally called the Delta Plus, rears its head.
India has recorded 30.45 million cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic last year and is the second-most affected country behind the United States, which has 33 million cases.
“Undercounting of deaths is something that has happened across states, mostly because of lags in the system, so that means we will never have a true idea of how many people we lost in this second wave,” said Rijo M John, a professor at the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in the southern city of Kochi.
India added 100,000 deaths in 39 days, as a brutal second wave of infections swept across cities and into the vast countryside where millions remain vulnerable without a single shot of vaccine. India’s death toll is also the third-highest globally.
Although cases have declined steadily since hitting a peak in May, government officials and experts have warned that a third wave looms, as the country slowly reopens and a new variant, locally called the Delta Plus, rears its head.
India has recorded 30.45 million cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic last year and is the second-most affected country behind the United States, which has 33 million cases.
