The Central government on Thursday has termed the New York Times report on covid deaths in India as 'baseless'.
VK Paul, Head of India’s Covid Task Force and member of NITI Aayog said, “The NYT report is not backed by any evidence and is based on distorted estimates.”
VK Paul further said that it may be possible that the number of infectious people is higher than the number of people positive, but it is not the same with Covid deaths.
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He said, “There may be some late reporting of deaths but there's no intent of any state or centre government. If I apply the same three times yardsticks to NY, then there will be 50,000 deaths, but they say it’s 16,000. Hence, it is distorted.”
Dr Paul alleged, “Our fatality number is 0.05 percent of those infected. They have said 0.3 percent. Why? On what basis have you decided that it’s 0.3 percent of that large infection universe? There is no base at all. Five people get together, make phone calls and then throw this number. This is how this report has been done.”
He further said that there is a strong mortality system in the country and the ‘so-called prestigious newspaper’ should not publish such a piece.
On Tuesday, New York Times in an article said that India’s death toll is not transparent, stated that the original numbers of deaths are three times higher. The media agency enlisted the death toll in the country with the help of experts. These experts have divided the pandemic in India into three conditions – normal, poor, and extremely poor condition.
According to the NYT report, in the worst condition, 70 million people have been infected and 42 lakh deaths have been estimated.
The Health Ministry has stated that the country has witnessed a decline in new Covid-19 cases from the last 20 days. The ministry said, “We are on a downswing of the second wave of Covid-19 and believe that it will be sustained even when restrictions are significantly relaxed.”