India records 300,000 Covid deaths as pandemic rages

Islam News – Experts warn that the real number of fatalities might be much higher as many deaths are not officially recorded.

India has recorded 26 million cases – second only to the US – and is now the epicenter of the global pandemic.

The country is also only the third in the world to record more than 300,000 deaths – behind the US and Brazil.

It took less than a month to record its last 100,000 deaths.

A deadly second wave in recent weeks has overwhelmed the country’s healthcare system, with hospitals struggling to cope with the influx of patients and with critical drugs and oxygen running out.

Some experts say the number of daily deaths may rise further. Dr Murad Banaji, a mathematician at Middlesex University London, has been tracking the pandemic closely.

“We expect a delay between cases peaking and deaths peaking. But also, as with cases, we know there are huge variations in death surveillance and recording between states, and between urban and rural areas,” he told the BBC.

“Even once recorded fatalities start to fall, we’ll need to be wary of reading too much into this until we stop hearing reports of large numbers of rural deaths,” Dr Banaji said.

Source : BBC