TS percentage of Covid deaths stays unchanged

A strange, inexplicable phenomenon is dogging Telangana state ever since it was hit by Covid-19. As part of this, the state health department appears to have been gripped by an inexplicable certitude with respect to the nature of the causes leading to fatalities among Covid-19 patients.

In a peculiar, and uncanny, oddity, the number of people losing their lives after getting infected by the Coronavirus, and classified as ‘deaths due to

Covid-19’, and ‘deaths due to comorbidities’ has stayed rock steady since July 27, the date from which the health department began sharing percentages of these two categories that comprise

Covid-19 deaths.

As per the bulletin issued on Tuesday, for the

24-hour period ending on Monday 8 pm, Telangana state has witnessed 645 deaths from among the

82,647 persons officially declared as Covid-19 cases since March 2, the day the

first Covid-19 positive case was discovered in the state.

On July 27, the health department, in its daily

Covid-19 bulletin, said there were 480 deaths as on that day. It said that of these fatalities, the percentage of deaths due to

Covid-19 was 46.13. As for the percentage of deaths due to comorbidities from among the Coronavirus infected people, the department reported they comprised 53.87 per cent till July 27.

Since that day, the number of Covid-19 related deaths rose to 645 as per the health department bulletin issued on Tuesday.

Though 165 more people lost their lives since July

27, the percentages of the cause of deaths, as far as the health department is concerned even on Tuesday, have remained exactly where they were on July 27 – at 46.13 per cent for Covid-19 deaths, and 53.87 per cent due to comorbidities or other preexisting health conditions.

Though the department does not provide any further data on fatalities among Covid-19 patients, those losing their lives to the disease to ‘fit into’ an existing data set, raises more questions than answers on the quality and reliability of Covid-19 figures released everyday by the health department.

The health department began issuing a ‘detailed’

Covid-19 bulletin, ranging between 50 and 60 odd pages, after it was repeatedly upbraided by the Telangana High Court for not releasing full data on

Covid-19 cases and for withholding critical information from the public, and for largely issuing inaccurate numbers with respect to Covid-19 victims.