‘Excess deaths’ in Haryana seven times official COVID-19 toll

The undercount factor was moderate compared with States such as Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh

The number of “excess deaths” registered by the Civil Registration System (CRS) in Haryana ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit (from April 2020 to May 2021) was 60,397, which is 7.3 times the official reported figure of 8,303 COVID-19 deaths for the same period. This high number was largely due to the deaths registered in April 2021 (28,276) and May 2021(46,108). In this period which coincided with the second wave, the excess deaths were around 46,283, compared with the registered COVID-19 tally of 5,148, leading to an undercount factor of 9. The overall tally in Haryana, as of July 12, is 9,556. The excess deaths were calculated based on the month-wise number of deaths registered in the online CRS from January 2018 to May 2021, which was accessed by The Hindu. Not all excess deaths would be related to COVID-19 but a bulk of them are, during the pandemic. The mortality figures registered online for 2018 and 2019 — 1,85,842 and 1,88,910 — were 96.1% and 97.3% of the deaths mentioned in the annual reports on “Vital Statistics in India based on CRS” 2018 and 2019 respectively.