image @ ecnomicstimes
new insight into the rise in unexplained deaths in Pakistan during the coronavirus pandemic from official data we’ve obtained: Lahore,
June 2019: 1,744 registered deaths
Lahore, June 2020: 3,723 registered deaths
Lahore, June 2020 official COVID deaths: 487
In Karachi, we got figures for burials in 32 government graveyards
June 2019 – 2,375 burials
June 2020 – 3,594 burials
June 2020, official COVID burials (in these graveyards) – 118
An official told us some families hide their COVID death certificate from graveyard admin because of stigma, so it’s likely more than 118 of those burials were of officially confirmed COVID deaths There were approx 729 recorded coronavirus deaths in June 2020 in Karachi.
image @arabnews
Still, does seem there’s a substantial rise in unexplained deaths in these cities.
The excess deaths could be undetected COVID cases – especially of people who died at home Could also be more people dying from other diseases and not going to the hospital because of COVID concerns.
Also worth noting the rise in burials in Karachi only becomes statistically significant in June – coinciding with a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths.
We haven’t managed to get detailed data from other places, though registered deaths from Baluchistan also show a rise:
February 2020 -220
March 2020 – 261
April 2020 – 315
May 2020 – 667
June 2020 (excl Quetta) – 641
The trend in death data on Karachi and Lahore is corroborated by other figures we have. E.g number of bodies processed at morgues by Edhi Foundation in Karachi:
June 2019 – 1,090
June 2020 – 3,064 (of which approx 813 official COVID patients)
And also burial data at Miani Sahib, the biggest graveyard in Lahore:
June 2019 – 696 burials
June 2020 – 1176 (of which 48 official COVID)
There will obviously be more uncounted deaths than these figures show due to unregistered deaths/burials in private graveyards… however, does also seem as if Pakistan still has lower deaths per million of population than Europe / USA.
