India surpasses 400,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths

India has confirmed 400,000 deaths from COVID-19, half in the past two months, as the virulent delta variant infected hundreds of thousands daily.

https://worldabcnews.com/india-surpasses-400000-confirmed-covid-19-deaths/

When one looks at Excess Deaths then India's total is about ten (10) times the official figure, which would bring their morality rate (ie deaths compared to the whole population) close to 3,000 deaths per million population.

Other reports have indicated (earlier on) that a wide range of countries were reporting only about 10% of excess deaths as covid death,  Not all countries are doing this so maybe worldwide the current death toll is about 5 times the officially announced rate, so over 20 million.  This will give a mortality rate  of 2.600 per million.  It does not sound unreasonable as already 8 countries are reporting official data in excess of that.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused excess deaths in India to cross more than four million, a new study has found.  Excess deaths are a measure of how many more people are dying than would be expected compared to the previous few years. Although it is difficult to say how many of these deaths have been caused by Covid-19, they are a measure of the overall impact of the pandemic.  India has officially recorded more than 414,000 Covid-19 deaths so far

Remember all those shallow graves by the sacred rivers?

"The true deaths are likely to be in several millions, not hundreds of thousands, making this arguably India's worst human tragedy since the partition and independence."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57888460

The US study [url]https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/three-new-estimates-indias-all-cause-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic.pdf[/url] or https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/three-new-estimates-indias-all-cause-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic.pdf 

India lacks an authoritative estimate of the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic. We report excess mortality estimates from three different data sources from the pandemic’s start through June 2021. First, extrapolation of state-level civil registration from seven states suggests 3.4 million excess deaths. Second, applying international estimates of age-specific infection fatality rates (IFR) to Indian seroprevalence data implies a higher toll of around 4 million. Third, our analysis of the Consumer Pyramid Household Survey, a longitudinal panel of over 800,000 individuals across all states, yields an estimate of 4.9 million excess deaths. Each of these estimates has shortcomings and they also diverge in the pattern of deaths between the two waves of the pandemic. Estimating COVID-deaths with statistical confidence may prove elusive. But all estimates suggest that the death toll from the pandemic is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count of 400,000; they also suggest that the first wave was more lethal than is believed. Understanding and engaging with the data-based estimates is necessary because in this horrific tragedy the counting— and the attendant accountability—will count for now but also the future.

DJ [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Independence,_population_transfer_and_violence[/url] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Independence,_population_transfer_and_violence ; The partition displaced between 10 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions.^[2][3][4][5] There was large-scale violence, with estimates of the loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.^[1][a] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that affects their relationship to this day.

This makes the present pandemic in India already more deadly in real numbers. Since British India around 1950 had 390 million population-now the Republic of India almost 1,4 billion in % the loss of life-so far-is more limited. 

India breaking up did kill around 0,5% of its population. Even if you would put the pandemic deaths for India today at 5 million it would be under the 0,5% of the population...

But again-this pandemic is NOT over-Delta+ variant may still kill millions more in India...Most of them poor, proberbly Muslims over represented... 

Talked to an old India hand the other day.  He told me that his take on this was , of course it is grossly undercounted.  He has family still in India and three cousins are already dead.    He isn't going back any time soon.   He talked to his brother in law yesterday and was told that at least 1.5 million have died from Covid alone.  Josh, maybe you could do the math here.   Pretty damming  comment , " We have people dropping dead ".  It is really bad, he fears 5 million deaths from Covid.