How many people have died due to COVID-19 in India? The official figures as of Friday, 28 May, stand at 3,18,895 but a New York Times report has ruffled feathers by suggesting that this number grossly under-represents the true state of the pandemic in India.

The report from Tuesday, 25 May, studied three national serosurveys conducted in India over the course of the pandemic. The first survey was conducted from 11 May to 3 June. The second from 18 August to 20 September and the last from 18 December to 6 January.

From those numbers which NYT deduced, almost half of India’s population, which is 68.32 crore people, may have contracted COVID in the past year, a number which is a far cry from the 27.5 crore that the Centre is reporting.

The question of the total death count due to COVID has emerged again, as rural India is starting to show a spike in cases. Even as there is an enormous scarcity of medical resources, from hospital beds to oxygen to testing kits.

If accurate data is scarce and difficult to access from metro cities, it is almost non-existent in rural India, where the situation is dire. So, do we have the true picture of India’s pandemic situation?

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Host and Producer: Himmat Shaligram

Guest: Dr Murad Banaji, a mathematician at the University of Middlesex and The Quint’s correspondents Himanshi Dahiya and Asmita Nandy.

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