New Delhi
The mathematical modelling approach adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates related to COVID-19 suffers from erroneous assumptions and is unscientific and India had registered its strong objection to this methodology, the government informed Parliament on Tuesday. India had objected to the ‘one size fits all’ approach adopted by the WHO as it might be true for smaller countries but cannot be applied to a huge and diverse country like India which had varied case trajectories across multiple states and at different periods during the pandemic, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said in a written reply. She was responding to a question on the World Health Organization (WHO) stating that the number of people who died of COVID-19 in India is 47 lakh. As on July 16, 2022, as reported by states and UTs, 5,25,660 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the country, the reply said quoting India’s official data. The WHO, based on a mathematical modelling exercise, has, however, projected an estimate of about 47 lakh excess deaths in India associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic, between January 1 2020 and December 31, 2021. This is primarily an estimate of deaths due to all causes which includes deaths due to COVID-19 also. The mathematical modelling-based approach by WHO suffered from a number of inconsistencies and erroneous assumptions. India had highlighted against the classification of certain countries under tier-1 while they had displayed data inconsistencies in reporting and placing India under tier 2 while India has followed a robust system of data reporting, Pawar said in the written reply.
