Political propaganda is the last thing on my mind right now. Here's some sources for the lack of cremation facilities.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/pushed-to-the...

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/indias-crematoriums-...

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/at-delhi-cr...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/104th-in-the...

This is not in line with only 3500 people dying all over the country. This is in line with the range the above comment mentions. My anecdote of people dying my inner circle is not political. Neither is my opinion that the official numbers are to be not trusted given the evidence.

Can you say the actual facts and/or calculations that lead to 10x? From what you've said, it could be that crematoriums were already operating just below capacity and are now just above capacity, causing growing backlogs even with only a very small increase in demand.

Even NYT estimates the real numbers might be 10x reported, and I would also expect that to be a reasonable estimate. Roughly a quarter of the people I know tested positive in the past month, it's not possible with such a high infection rate only 3000 people die in a day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/world/asia/india-coronavi...

The UK peaked at ~1200/day, with a population 1/20th the size. That's "only" 24K scaled up, looking at India now it's hard to picture things as being only a bit worse than the UK peak.

My guess is that for a lot of processes, crematoria included, capacity is not some fixed number below which everything is fine and above which the backlog piles up.

It's like my parents' restaurant, you can get busier and busier without there being a wall. When you "hit capacity" you find you're doing many things that you weren't normally doing, like being open a lot longer, asking for longer shifts from staff, rationing things that you wouldn't normally ration.

>From what you've said, it could be that crematoriums were already operating just below capacity and are now just above capacity, causing growing backlogs even with only a very small increase in demand.

Can't be the case throughout the country in all affected districts and all densely populated states.

You see reports of crematoriums running 24/7 and still not able to fulfill the demand for cremations and find it reasonable to land on any other conclusion but people are dying. I think I've presented enough.

Well, I am only objecting to unsupported numbers being thrown around. How do you go from "crematoriums being pushed to the limit" to 10-100X Covid deaths?

Extraordinary claims (such as up to 3 million deaths in ten days) require extraordinary evidence. My response, if you notice, was specifically about that claim. And I also did not fail to mention that deaths are underreported.

Are you objecting specifically to the 100? It seems clear enough to me that it's not supposed to be a very tight estimate. Would "an order of magnitude or two" be better? Or "an order of magnitude or more"?

And it definitely suggests that the amount of under-reporting varies by area, so it's even more unfair for you to multiply the entire country's number by 100 as your goalpost.

I am objecting to people making up numbers, when no such data is available. Like the parent post for instance, connecting reports of crematoriums being full to order-of-magnitude scale (10X or more) undocumented Covid deaths.

There are however, other reports you can quote:

- The Print (not govt-leaning) "If you claim India’s Covid death toll is 2x govt figure, it’s understandable. But not 10x" [1]

- NYTimes: Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has been following India closely. “From all the modeling we’ve done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported.” [2]

In short, I strongly feel throwing numbers around without basis simply widens the chasm.

[1]: https://theprint.in/opinion/if-you-claim-indias-covid-death-...

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/world/asia/india-coronavi...