Real picture of Covid not shown: Doc

“There are cases of patients undergoing treatment in hospitals, developing complications and being put on ventilator support yet the death is not recorded as caused by

Covid-19. These practices are not reflecting the real numbers of those dead. Fatality rate and underreporting are rampant, so the real picture of the impact of the disease is not being shown,” the senior doctor said.

Experts state that if they take 1,000 negative samples and track those cases there will be 50 per cent

Covid-19-based mortality as many of them never made it to hospital and those who made it do not want it registered. This has led to the conclusion that the numbers are not the real-time numbers.

Those operating hearse services for the dead state that people are very sentimental and do not want the name Covid-19 as the cause of death. An NGO operating these services said, “People want their dead to be given due burial or cremation. If Covid-19 is declared, then the guidelines do not allow family members to come forward for rituals. There are municipal workers and police involved and many of them do not want that. With dead bodies sanitised

THOSE OPERATING hearse services state that people are sentimental and do not want the name Covid-19 as the cause of death.

and in plastic bags, family members wearing personal protection equipment want their dead to be respected in their final journey and rituals followed. Due to this, the disease is not declared but all the precautions, limited numbers of near and dear ones and other basic protocols are followed.”

This sentiment has allegedly helped the government too as there is a committee scrutinising the death reports before declaring them as Covid-19 deaths. They are now not considering these cases.

Presently, the medical bulletin has consistently highlighted 54 per cent deaths due to co-morbid conditions of diabetes, hypertension, kidney failure and other multi-organ failures as the prime cause of death other than the infection by the virus.

The fact that the virus triggers havoc in the body is not being understood by common people and that is taken advantage of, allowing for the projecting a low fatality rate of 0.77 per cent in the state and 1.99 per cent in the country.