Sohini Chatterjee
India became world’s third country to register over 3 lakh deaths due to Covid-19, after The US and Brazil, on Sunday.
This landmark was reached by India after it saw a steep rise in the number of fatalities during the second wave of Covid-19 over the last two months.
Reports suggest that the unofficial toll is likely to be 3 times higher than the official figures.
How India went from 1 to 3 lakh from March 2020 to May 2021
According to worldometers.info, India has officially recorded 3, 00,312 Covid deaths which is half of the deaths recorded by US, i.e., 6 lakh.
Brazil recorded a death toll of 4.48 lakh and is the third worst hit country in terms of cases.
There are only five other countries in the world who have recorded a six figure death toll. They are, Mexico (2.21 lakh), UK (1.27 lakh), Italy (1.25 lakh), Russia (1.18 lakh), and France (1.08 lakh).
Low fatality rate
India has recorded over 2.26 crore total infections and is the second worst hit country in terms of cases. But astonishingly, it is the lowest among the other hard hit countries in terms of the fatality rate.
India’s current fatality rate stands at 1.12%, which represents 1 death per 100 cases.
By comparison, Italy has a higher fatality rate, nearly 3%. The US has also recorded a higher fatality rate of 1.18%.
This however, is based on the toll figures which are officially recorded by the countries. The actual fatality rate could very well be different based on the unofficial death tolls.