The government on Thursday rejected a report published by the New York Times on India's Covid death toll. Calling the report as 'completely baseless and false', the Union Health ministry said that report was not 'backed by any evidence and based on distorted estimates', news agency PTI reported.
The NYT report on Wednesday contradicted India's official Covid death toll figures and said that the actual deaths could be up to 1.6 million.
The report stated that the estimated number of total deaths was arrived at after consultations with experts and analysing cases and death counts over a period of time.
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Meanwhile, steady decline in new COVID-19 cases has been recorded in India for the last 20 days, with 24 states witnessing a dip in active cases since the last week, the health ministry said on Thursday.
India's COVID-19 infection tally climbed to 2,73,69,093 as 2,11,298 more people tested positive for the disease in a day, while the country's recovery went up to 90 per cent, the ministry said.
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The death toll due to the disease rose to 3,15,235 with 3,847 fresh fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.
(With inputs from PTI)