Excess deaths during COVID-19 in line with pre-2020 trend, says govt sources citing data

India's cumulative excess mortality for 2020-2021 was 9.3 per cent higher than expected deaths, a figure which was lower than that of the US, Italy and Russia, official sources said, referring to the latest Civil Registration System (CRS) data.

- OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI:

Sources pointed out that the number of deaths documented in the CRS has been increasing over time, even in the years preceding the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, they said.

The excess mortality is the additional number of deaths, due to all causes during a crisis such as COVID-19, above the number of deaths expected to be reported during "normal" conditions.

The annual increment observed in a given year, compared to the previous year, has varied from 1.3 per cent in 2016 to 9.93 per cent in 2019, with the average increase over three preceding years (2016 to 2019) estimated at 6.42 per cent per annum.