COVID deaths in India have surpassed 500,000, but some experts predict there must be plenty more

On Friday, India's official COVID-19 death toll surpassed 500,000, a figure that some data analysts claim was reached last year but was masked by incorrect surveys and unaccounted dead in the country's hinterlands, where millions are still at risk.

According to official records, the country, which has the fourth highest death toll in the world, had 400,000 deaths by July 2021 as a result of the devastating epidemic of the Delta form of the coronavirus. Some speculate that the numbers were significantly greater.

"Using three distinct datasets, our analysis published in the journal Science anticipates 3 million COVID fatalities in India through mid-2021," Chinmay Tumbe, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

The Indian government dismissed the study as unfounded in a notification last month, claiming that there is a comprehensive system of birth and death reporting in place.

After compiling statistics from respective districts, India's states keep track of COVID deaths. Several states have revised the number of deaths in recent months, some under duress from the country's top court. The majority of the failures, according to authorities, were caused by late registrations and other administrative issues.

According to the federal health ministry, India's total death toll reached 500,055 on Friday, with 1,072 fatalities reported in the previous 24 hours. 335 deaths were reported from Kerala, a southern state that has been updating data with deaths from the previous year for weeks.

Kerala, which has a population of less than 3% of India's 1.35 billion people, accounts for roughly 11% of the country's total mortality.