Excess mortality in India from June 2020 to June 2021 during the COVID pandemic: death registration, health facility deaths, and survey data

Deshmukh, Y.; Suraweera, W.; Tumbe, C.; Bhowmick, A.; Sharma, S.; Novosad, P.; Fu, S. H.; Newcombe, L.; Gelband, H.; Brown, P.; Jha, P.

Background: India's official death totals from the COVID pandemic are widely regarded as under-reports. Methods: We quantified all-cause excess mortality in India, comparing deaths during the peak of the first and second COVID waves (Jul-Dec 2020 and April-June 2021) with month wise deaths in 2015-19 from three sources: Civil Registration System (CRS) mortality reports from 15 states or cities with 37% of India's population; deaths in 0.2 million health facilities; and a representative survey of 0.14 million adults about COVID deaths. Results: During the first viral wave, the median excess mortality compared to CRS baseline was 22% and 41%, respectively, in included states and cities, rising to 46% and 85% during the second wave. In settings with 10 or more months of data across the two waves, the median excess mortality was 32% and 37% for states and cities, respectively. Deaths in health facilities showed a 27% excess mortality from July 2020-May 2021, reaching 120% during April-May 2021. The national survey found 3.5% of adults reported a COVID death in their household in April-June 2021, approximately doubling the 3.2% expected overall deaths. The national survey showed 29-32% excess deaths from June 1, 2020 to June 27, 2021, most of which were likely to be COVID. This translates to 3.1-3.4 million COVID deaths (including 2.5-2.8 million during April-June 2021). National extrapolations from health facility and CRS data suggest 2.7-3.3 million deaths during the year. Conclusions: India's COVID death rate may be about 7-8 times higher than the officially reported 290/million population.