Death registration in India may have been disrupted during 2020 lockdown

Source: AP

The registration of deaths in India had taken a hit during the first year of COVID-19, according to the Civil Registration System (CRS) report for 2020 released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on May 3.

While the trajectory of excess deaths—the difference between deaths registered in two consecutive years- registered has consistently risen in every year since 2016, it fell in 2020 from the previous year.

A total of 81.15 lakh deaths were registered in India in 2020, while the number of deaths registered in 2019 were 76.41 lakhs

However, comparative data suggests that while there were 6.9 lakh extra deaths in 2019, this number fell to 4.8 lakh in 2020. Every year from 2016 to 2019, the number of extra deaths had been higher than in the previous year. A very similar pattern had been seen since 2008.

Also Read: India releases 2020 death data ahead of WHO COVID mortality study it objects

Health economist Rijo M John said the fall in excess deaths in 2020 may have been due to disruptions in death registration, mainly on account of a nationwide lockdown that was imposed on March 25 and was eased starting June that year.

Economist R Ramakumar, who is attached with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, expressed a similar view.

Impact on registration

The latest CRS report said all states and Union Territories did not furnish information on the extracts of birth and death certificates issued. Only 27 states submitted the requisite information in 2020. The extracts refer to data that’s recorded in the register of births or deaths, which are issued to the person who provided the information of such births and deaths.

Andhra Pradesh and Kerala did not furnish the breakup of birth and death certificates. In some cases, the report conceded, people too faced hindrances in reporting births and deaths.

In Telangana, the report said the general public faced difficulties in reporting events due to the pandemic, apart from vacancies at key positions. The same was the case in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.

John pointed out that this may have been true for many other states, mainly during the lockdown period.

“Based on the report, however, we can only say that the disruption may have been in death registrations due to all causes and not just Covid-19,” John said.

Economist Pritam Dutta said that it seems that because of the ongoing pandemic standard operating procedure of registering death and birth has been interrupted in many places. “So it is possible that deaths are under reported in those places,” he said.

Not all excess deaths due to COVID-19

VK Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog, who is also chairman of the national Covid-19 taskforce, said in a TV interview after the release of the CRS report that there were almost 4.8 lakh extra deaths in 2020, but all may not have been due to Covid-19.

“Our data shows that 1.49 lakh deaths occurred in 2020 due to the coronavirus and it’s possible that some deaths may have been missed, but definitely all deaths were not due to Covid-19,” Paul said.

Paul added the CRS report, which was based on submissions by the states, was the most reliable data for assessing births and deaths in a given area and the World Health Organization should use this instead of any modeling.

In its yet-to-be-released report on global Covid-19 deaths, WHO estimated that the toll in India may be almost eight times higher than the official figure of a little over 5 lakhs in 2020-2021.

The Indian government has strongly objected to the WHO findings and has been resisting its global release.