The Office of Registrar General recently released the data of birth and death count happening in the nation in the year 2020. The data follows an odd trend and depicts an increase of 6% in the registered deaths than that of 2019 whereas the nation witnessed a decline in the registered birth rate from 2.42 crore to that of 2.48 crore in the year 2019.
It must be noted that the data includes only the registered deaths and births happening in the year 2020. As per the data released there were about 81 lakh deaths registered in the year 2020 which was around 76 lakh in 2019, hence following up an increasing trend of death rate in the nation
It’s a well known fact that covid knocked the doors of the nation in the year 2020 and created almost havoc in the country, resulting in shortage of beds and other necessary medical facilities. However as per the government data released at the time 1.48 lakh people lost their lives because of the pandemic.
However the data released by the government regarding the covid deaths had been into questions both then and now that there may be possibilities that the GOI had been trying to hide the actual number of deaths occured in the time being. The new data of the overall deaths occured in the year 2019 or the covid year yet again hints at the possible underreporting of the cases or the deaths occurred during the time.
In the past two year when the covid cases saw an unprecedented surge in the nation, a huge shortage in hospital and other medical facilities were seen due to which many people lost their lives even without getting proper treatment. Also, last year floating dead bodies were also found on the banks of ganga, which created an outrage among the people and also raised questions whether the government had been trying to hide the worsening situation by controlling the death count.
On the other hand many health experts believe that the increasing count is also a result of the increased awareness among the commoners to report the deaths that occurred in their vicinity.
Moreover as per the official data provided by the GOI, so far 523,000 people have lost their lives due to covid whereas some individual researchers argue the count to be around 5 times more than the official figures. Health ministry however denies any such claims and asserts to have a strong death recording system which delivers genuine figures.
Vinod Paul, a member of the NITI Ayog and one of the top health official stated, the numbers revealed is the actual count and not modelling and reaffirmed that the death the extra count of 480000 includes all sort of deaths, including cardiovascular deaths, children’s deaths and covid deaths too.
Meanwhile, the data would not be able to solve the death mystery of the past two years but still somehow manages to hint at the possible death count occurred during the period.
