What do Delhi’s death registration figures tell us about Covid-19 death toll?

Delhi’s three municipal corporations issued 33,109 death certificates in April and May this year at the peak of the Covid second wave, roughly three times the number registered in 2020 and 73.8% of the figure in 2019, records showed. During these two months in 2021, the official Covid death toll in Delhi was 13,210 – 5,120 in April and 8,090 in May. The data from the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) – which together have 95% of the Capital’s population – pointed towards excess or uncounted deaths, which experts say was responsible for an undercounting of Covid mortality during the second wave. In April and May 2020, the three corporations issued 10,258 death certificates. The nationwide lockdown in place during these two months may have forced many people to apply for certificates later. In April and May 2019, the three corporations gave out 19,047 death certificates. Also Read | Delhi University likely to provide fee waiver to students orphaned by Covid-19Municipal authorities clarified that death registrations did not necessarily reflect the total death count in a particular month because some people apply for certificates later. Civic authorities attributed the increase in death registrations to the second wave of Covid-19 and clearance of backlog due to technical problems. Jai Prakash, mayor of NDMC, said death certificate are issued after someone’s kin applies for it and crematoriums also separately issue a slip for funeral. “The hike in death registrations in April and May this year is also because of second wave of Covid-19 where thousands of people died, which is also present in government records. The number of death registrations is just a suggestive data and based on it cannot precisely say that so many deaths occurred in a particular month,” Prakash said. Precise information about number of deaths due to Covid-19 can only be ascertained by conducting a door-to-door survey, he added. A senior SDMC official said on the condition of anonymity that other than Covid-19, the surge was also because of backlog created by technical glitches. “Earlier this year, registrations of death and birth certificates were made completely online but there were initial glitches due to which death certification process was affected. This also created a backlog but now everything is fine and that backlog is being cleared,” the official said. According to municipal data, 9,657 deaths were registered across the three civic bodies in April 2019 while the number was 9,390 in May 2019. In 2020, when coronavirus pandemic hit the city, death registrations across the three corporations dropped to 4,783 for April 2020 and 5,475 for May 2020. When the second wave of Covid – fourth for Delhi – ravaged the city in April and May this year, the number of death registrations increased. In April, the three municipalities issued 9,109 death certificates while in May, 24,000 certificates were issued. “Second wave of Covid is one of the main reasons behind the surge. In April and May 2020, the lockdown was very strict and no one could come for registrations of deaths of their kin. Other than this, due to restriction on traffic movement, fewer people died in that period due to which the number of death registrations in those months in 2020 is less,” EDMC mayor Nirmal Jain said. He also said that the issuance of death certificates by civic bodies did not give a clear picture about number of deaths in any particular month. If someone applied for a death certificate in May and got the certificate in that month, then the death will be registered in May even if the person died in April, he said.