Maharashtra adds 1,328 old fatalities to its Covid death toll
RISING COUNT State’s death toll stands at 5,537, a little less than half of all coronavirus-related deaths in the country
MUMBAI: Maharashtra added 1,328 old fatalities to its Covid-19 death toll on Tuesday as part of a data cleaning and reconciliation exercise that pushed the state’s tally of virus casualties past 5,000 and prompted allegations that the government was fudging disease figures.
India’s worst-hit state reported 81 fatalities in the last 24 hours. The 1,328 deaths are from March and April, said a senior official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on condition of anonymity.
The state’s death toll now stands at 5,537, a little less than half of all coronavirus-related deaths in the country. The addition led to a spike in the state’s case fatality rate – defined as the ratio of deaths to total number of cases – and it now stands at 4.9, against a national rate of 3.4.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanded a high-level inquiry and termed the development a conspiracy.
Maharashtra also logged 2,701 more infections in the last 24 hours, taking the case tally to 113,445. “The figures of the deaths have risen suddenly owing to the reconciliation of the figures. It is true that there was negligence to a certain extent at some level and it led to the mismatch in the figures,” said Bhushan Gagarani, principal secretary.
He blamed lack of information in private hospitals and poor record keeping in government facilities. “Some private hospitals did not provide us the information in time while in some government hospitals, the records about the deaths were not kept properly. In some cases the death certificates had the mention of Covid infection as cause of the fatality, but in hospital records, the entry was missing. When we realised the lapses we, last week, asked all the municipal corporations and district collectors to reconcile the data on an urgent basis,” he added.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s office said he mandated exhaustive data reconciliation last week.
“On June 13, the state asked all municipal commissioners and collectors to check with all local labs and hospital on the same. The state is fighting Covid with absolute honesty and it holds transparency sacred. Data reconciliation and tally will be done every few weeks so as to ensure complete transparency.”
Gagarani admitted that the data was not being fed as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, leading to the mismatch.
The Opposition alleged that the government was “covering up” death figures. Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis demanded to know what action would be taken by the state.
“ICMR and World Health Organisation have clear guidelines on recording the Covid-19 deaths, despite which the state government appointed a committee for the audit of the deaths. Was this committee to reduce the fatalities or to hid them? It is my sincere request to the state government that please don’t ignore this entire episode of criminal negligence in the name of reconciliation of numbers,” he tweeted.
Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said the government’s efforts to correct data should be lauded. “Today’s declaration was part of the ongoing process which will happen every month,” he added.