As India Crosses 2 Lakh Deaths, Are Deaths Being Underreported?

On 28 April India officially crossed a grim landmark of 2 lakh deaths from COVID-19. However, we may have reached this number a lot earlier than it was announced. The alarming spike in daily cases and fatalities has not only highlighted the weak health infrastructure in the country but also led to long waiting periods at crematoriums in Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and several other states. According to the World Health Organization, a death should be recorded as a COVID death if the disease is assumed to have caused or contributed to it, even if the person had a pre-existing medical condition or comorbidities. However, there have been reasons to speculate that multiple states have been grossly undercounting COVID deaths. In today’s episode, we will go through several news reports and The Quint’s on-ground coverage on the ground reality at crematoriums that suggest a discrepancy in COVID death toll figures in India. Host and Producer: Himmat Shaligram Guest: Poonam Agarwal, The Quint’s Investigations Editor, and Ritvick Bhalekar, The Quint’s Senior Correspondent in Mumbai. Editor: Shelly Walia Music: Big Bang Fuzz Listen to The Big Story podcast on: Apple: https://apple.co/2AYdLIl Saavn: http://bit.ly/2oix78C Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/2ntMV7S Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2IyLAUQ Deezer: http://bit.ly/2Vrf5Ng Castbox: http://bit.ly/2VqZ9ur Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices