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EspañolIndia, home to the world's worst ongoing coronavirus outbreak, has reported more than 17.6 million cases since the pandemic began last year.
But the real number, experts fear, could be up to 30 times higher -- meaning more than half a billion cases.
The country's underfunded public health infrastructure means that even in normal times, only 86% of deaths nationwide are registered in government systems. And only 22% of all registered fatalities are given an official cause of death, certified by a doctor, according to community medicine specialist Dr. Hemant Shewade.
The majority of people in India die at home or other places, not in a hospital, so doctors usually are not present to assign a cause of death -- a problem that has only deepened in the second wave, with hospitals out of space. With nowhere to go, Covid patients are now increasingly dying at home, in idling ambulances, in waiting rooms and outside overwhelmed clinics.
