The government on Thursday dismissed a report by The New York Times, which estimated that India’s coronavirus infections and death count are much higher than the official figures.
The government, during a press briefing, said the NYT report is “completely baseless and false”, reported The Times of India.
The NYT report published on May 25 suggested three different scenarios of India’s current coronavirus wave — a ‘conservative scenario’, a ‘more likely scenario’ and a ‘worse scenario’.
Under the ‘worse case scenario’, the NYT estimated that more than 70 crore people may have contracted Covid in the second wave, much higher than the official figure of over 2 crore, comprising both the waves. It pegged the death count at 40 lakh, higher than India’s official toll of over 3 lakh.
Rejecting the report, the government said it is based on distorted estimates and not backed by any real evidence.
The NYT estimates were based on an analysis of the cases and deaths, and also on the three national sero surveys conducted last year during the first wave.
There have been other reports also that said India, and other countries like the US and China, where the first coronavirus case was detected in 2019, have under-reported the number of infections and deaths.
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