Counting the COVID toll in India Updated: Updated: May 17, 2021 23:31 IST In order to understand the pandemic’s extent, a district-wise estimation is the best bet to arrive at a national total Share Article AAA In order to understand the pandemic’s extent, a district-wise estimation is the best bet to arrive at a national total Last year, in these columns, I wrote about the many challenges in estimating deaths due to COVID-19 in India. While the challenges remain, the need for estimating COVID-19 deaths globally and in India to understand the magnitude of the pandemic is still there. Since direct counting of COVID-deaths is problematic, the approach most commonly used is the “excess” death approach which attributes all deaths beyond what is considered “normal” for that area and time to COVID-19. It includes deaths directly caused by COVID-19 as well as deaths indirectly caused due to the impact on access to care for other diseases during the pandemic and the lockdown.