In this episode of Checks and Balances, Saahil Murli Menghani fact-checks the Narendra Modi government’s rebuttal to WHO’s disclosure that 42 lakh more Indians died due to COVID-19 than the Indian government’s official figures.
Head of the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group Jonathan Wakefield talks about how it was due to the Indian government’s stiff resistance that this big disclosure was stalled for six months. He also reveals that the Modi government’s arguments were unscientific and left WHO scientists frustrated.
Most importantly, Wakefield has told The Wire that the methodology which the Modi government has criticised to rubbish WHO estimates is in fact not the methodology that the WHO has used. He also tells us that the Indian government was repeatedly told about the methodology over a period of six months in several email exchanges and hence there was no room for confusion. He says that the Indian government had wilfully misunderstood the methodological documents WHO sent it.
That and much more evidence in this report take us closer to India’s real death toll due to the SARS-COV-2 virus.
