India's death toll in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from delayed official civil registration data.

ABSTRACT: India released its 2021 official death registration data in May 2025, showing a dramatic undercount of reported COVID-19 mortality in 2021 - a year that included the lethal second wave from the Delta variant in April to June 2021. The civil registration system (CRS) documented 10.2 million deaths in 2021 - a 26% increase from 2020 - compared to only 335 004 reported COVID-19 deaths. We calculated excess deaths as the difference between observed deaths and expected deaths had pre-pandemic mortality trends continued. Our analysis reveals India experienced approximately 2.4 million excess deaths in 2021, representing a 7.2× undercount compared to reported COVID-19 deaths. This aligns with the estimates derived from several epidemiological models during and after the pandemic, indicating exces

SUBMITTER: Salvatore M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12615008 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature