Opinion | Forget the WHO. India owes its people the truth about covid-19.

In April 2021, the oxygen supply to the intensive care unit of the hospital where Manju Begum was admitted ran out. Manju, just 30, was among 20 patients who died; this was just one case among scores in hospitals across the country. Amid oxygen shortages, hospitals posted desperate SOS messages, families carried bottle-size oxygen cylinders to their relatives, and Sikh gurudwaras that usually feed the poor for free organized oxygen drives instead. Despite this catastrophe, India’s Parliament was informed this year that there was not a single death from oxygen shortage reported by any state during the pandemic. The unforgivable erasure of these covid-19 deaths has been underscored again by the recent dispute between the World Health Organization and the Indian government over exactly how many people died during the pandemic.