40% of India's total Covid-19 deaths during a relentless second wave

Fatalities growing at double-digit rate, though there has been some let-up in the past few days

The second wave of Covid-19 has seen a significant rise in the number of recorded deaths, with the total toll since the pandemic hit India in 2020 crossing 250,000 this week. Around 40 per cent of these deaths have occurred since the beginning of March this year.

The daily death numbers show that India has more people dying of Covid-19 than in entire continents, according to tracker Our World in Data (see chart 1). Asia has over 5,600 daily Covid-19 deaths of which more than 4,000 are from India.

The national mortality rate, according to health ministry data, stands at 1.09 per