India's COVID-19 toll the highest, says WHO; government questions validity of model
FirstpostAccording to the report, there were 4.7 million COVID deaths in India – 10 times the official figures and almost a third of COVID deaths globally New Delhi: India on Thursday strongly objected to the use of mathematical models by the World Health Organization for projecting excess mortality estimates linked to the coronavirus pandemic in view of the availability of authentic data, saying validity and robustness of the models used and methodology of data collection are questionable. India has been consistently objecting to the methodology adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates based on mathematical models, the Union Health Ministry said in a statement. “Despite India’s objection to the process, methodology and outcome of this modelling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns,” the statement said. “Despite communicating this data to WHO for supporting their publication, WHO for reasons best known to them conveniently chose to ignore the available data submitted by India and published the excess mortality estimates for which the methodology, source of data, and the outcomes has been consistently questioned by India,” the statement said.