![]() ![]() In the last few years, the government has sued or prosecuted several news organizations and journalists, citing defamation or other even more dubious rationales. Since Modi came into power in 2015, the freedom of India’s expansive media culture has dramatically shrunk, according to sources including Reporters Without Borders. While undercounting disease is a longstanding problem in India, the assault on press freedom is far more recent. India's Covid obfuscation suppresses 'bad news' to buoy its image and the government party’s domestic standing Modi’s government had a choice between saving face and saving lives, and has chosen mass death. But undercounting disease is, in many ways, far more sinister. Some actually at times overcount deaths from other viruses in order to get more humanitarian aid. Not all countries with struggling health systems do this. Like India’s see-no-evil approach to malaria or tuberculosis, its Covid obfuscation suppresses “bad news” in order to buoy the country’s international image and the government party’s domestic standing. This denialist rhetoric is occurring at almost every level. As bodies burned in funeral pyres across Uttar Pradesh in April, Yogi Adityanath – the state’s chief minister and a key Modi lackey – claimed that everything was under control and repeatedly refused to announce new lockdown measures, even as he himself contracted Covid-19. The reigning party of the Indian government touted its success in curbing the virus very early in the pandemic, and has never let go of that narrative. Despite having become one of the largest economies in the world, Indian state and federal governments spend a dismal amount on healthcare, with an investment of less than 1% of its GDP, one of the lowest rates in the world.īut systemic failure is only one part of the puzzle. For one, the utter failure of the public health system makes it difficult to account for the millions of bodies passing through hospitals, clinics and those dying in their own home. There are various reasons India could be cooking the books on Covid deaths. Other experts point to total excess deaths in cities such as Mumbai as proof that there could be 60% to 70% more deaths from Covid-19 than the government is admitting to. The director of the US-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation has estimated that India is only detecting 3-4% of actual cases. ![]() It will also stymie global efforts to stop the Covid-19 pandemic, and new variants of the virus, at India’s border.Įpidemiologists in India and abroad estimate that the country’s official reported Covid-19 death toll – around 222,000 at time of publication – accounts for only a fraction of the real number. Blocking that information will only hurt millions within the country. Between India’s long history of hiding and undercounting illness deaths and its much more recent history of restraining and suppressing the press, Modi’s administration has made it impossible to find accurate information about the virus’s hold in the country. The crisis has been exacerbated by the government’s concealment of critical information. Now, with Covid ravaging the country, desperate Indians have taken to Twitter to ask for oxygen cylinders or beg hospitals for an open bed. ![]()
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