Bihar revises Covid-19 toll by 72% after HC flags flaws
State health dept also revised recovery rate which came down to 97.65 per cent
The total number of
Covid-19 death toll has jumped to 9,429 after the figures were revised by the Bihar health department.
The actual figure provided by the state health department till Monday was 5,424 but after the health department recounted the deaths in all
38 districts the toll jumped by more than 72 per cent.
Among the districts, Patna recorded 2,293 deaths, followed by Muzaffarpur with 609,
AMONG THE DISTRICTS, Patna recorded
2,293 deaths, followed by Muzaffarpur with 609, Nalanda 463, Begusarai
454, East Champaran 425.
Nalanda 463, Begusarai
454, East Champaran 425, Darbhanga 342 and Madhubani 317.
After recounting death figures, the state health department has also revised the recovery rate which came down from
98.70 to 97.65 per cent.
The move came after the Patna High Court flagged irregularities in the data and directed the state government to conduct an audit.
According to officials from the state health department here, the audit was carried out in all 38 districts by a team of experts. The revised figures also include those who died due to post-Covid complications and who died on their way to the hospital. “Most of the deaths occurred during the second wave of the pandemic. The increase in the figure was due to deaths which occurred during home isolation, post-Covid complications or at private hospitals”. Additional Secretary (Health) Pratyaya Amrit told reporters in Patna.
When asked whether the state health department was planning to initiate action against officials who failed to register figures related to Covid deaths, he said that “the government would take stern action against those who showed laxity in registering these figures”.
After the revised figures stoked a political controversy, state health minister Mangal Pandey said that the state government
the had been working on revising the figures for the past few weeks and released it on Tuesday.
The revised death figures have triggered a political row in Bihar. Blaming Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for irregularities in Covid-19 death figures, leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav in a tweet said that “The death toll suddenly jumped to 4,000 in a day. The government is still hiding the actual statistics. There have been 20 times more deaths than being claimed by the Nitish Kumar government”.