Researchers defend findings as Centre rejects study showing excess mortality due to Covid-19 in 2020
The government questioned the data accuracy and methodology of the study that suggested there were significantly higher deaths during the pandemic’s first year.
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The authors of a research paper on Covid-19 mortality in 2020 on Sunday defended their findings after the Union health ministry dismissed the study suggesting the possibility of excess deaths as a “gross and misleading overestimate”.
The paper published on Friday in the science journal Science Advances compared the number of deaths in 2020 to that in 2019, using data from the National Family Health Survey.
The study said that India had 1.19 million excess deaths in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, compared to 2019. The government had recorded 148,738 deaths in 2020 in the country due to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
On Saturday, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that the findings of the research paper on life expectancy during the Covid-19 pandemic in India in 2020 are “based on untenable and unacceptable estimates”.
The methodology adopted by the study had “critical flaws”, the ministry said in a press release. The government questioned the sample selection from the National Family Health Survey data and claimed that there is a possibility of reporting biases in the study. It also dismissed the criticism in the research paper about the government’s system for registering deaths and the Sample Registration Survey.
“The most important flaw is that the authors...
