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 A big rise in infections in April and May, driven largely by the
more infectious and dangerous Delta variant, brought India's health
system to its knees.
India has officially reported 403,281 deaths out of 29.75 million
people who have contracted the virus.
While the country of 1.35 billion people has reported fewer deaths
than the United States and Brazil some experts believe its actual
case and fatality numbers are several times higher.
Based on data reported by state authorities and collated by the
federal health ministry, the COVID-19 case fatality rate (CFR)
jumped to about 3% in June from 1.26% in October, the first full
month after the peak of its first wave of infections.
India's overall reported CFR is 1.31%, one of the lowest in the
world, which the government has highlighted as a sign of the
effectiveness of its pandemic response.
For interactive graphic: (https://tmsnrt.rs/3dKc5pI)
"We knew in the early part of the second wave that the pandemic was
mostly in northern India and the reporting there was not as good as
other states," said Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist and
public health expert in New Delhi.
By contrast, the more developed southern states better reported data
when they got hit later, he said, adding that more deaths are being
recorded now following a public outcry over undercounting.
The populous and poor northern state of Bihar, for example, raised
its death count by about 4,000 on a single day in early June after a
court ordered an audit.
India's worst affected state of Maharashtra also raised its COVID-19
death toll sharply higher after the discovery of thousands of
unreported cases.
The health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
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 DEADLY DELTA
While reported infections have fallen fast since
the May peak, deaths are not going down at the
same rate, worrying some experts as lockdowns
have been eased in many parts of the country.
"The Delta variant is both the most contagious
variant and among the most dangerous variants in
terms of infection fatality rates," said
Christophe Z Guilmoto, a demographer at the
French Institute of Research for Development in
New Delhi, who has studied COVID-19 mortality in
India. "It did play an
increasing role at the end of India's second wave, and this may
explain why the daily count of deaths in India isn't coming down as
fast as we expected/hoped."
To keep deaths low in any future wave, authorities will have to
place restrictions early, when the rate of positive COVID-19 results
rises, said Rajib Dasgupta, head of the Centre of Social Medicine &
Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He said authorities would also have to ramp up clinical care
capabilities together with case forecasting models, genomic
surveillance data and molecular epidemiologic analyses.
India's cremations crisis https://tmsnrt.rs/3oXNRNa
India's COVID-19 Case Fatality Rate https://tmsnrt.rs/3qMw10q
India's COVID-19 Case Fatality Rate (Interactive) https://tmsnrt.rs/3dKc5pI
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi and Ankur Banerjee in
Bengaluru; editing by Robert Birsel)
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