India’s death toll soars past 10K, backlog deaths raise count by 437 in Delhi, 1,409 in Maharashtra

The death toll in India due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) soared past the 10,000-mark on Tuesday after Delhi and Maharashtra took into account hundreds of fatalities that were pending review, increasing their total count by 437 and 1,409 respectively. In all, the country added 2,004 deaths -- including the 1,672 backlogged fatalities -- and 10,951 infections in its Covid tally on Tuesday.

The national capital also recorded the highest number of deaths – 93 -- in a 24-hour period. The city has now has recorded 44,688 infections in all with 1,837 of them succumbing to the disease. Tuesday’s reconciling of numbers takes case fatality rate (CFR) in the city from 3.3% to 4.1% in a single day.

A senior official from Delhi’s health department said the jump in numbers was due to the death committee’s efforts over the last four days to go through all previous mails and add the deaths. “Some of the deaths were missed as a result of clerical and technological errors,” said this person, asking not to be named.

Most of the backlog deaths were from June, with a few pending from before, this person said.

In Maharashtra, the state recorded 81 cases through the day to takes its total death count to 5,537. The state has had 113,445 cases, and the new death numbers take its CFR to 4.9% from 3.7 a day earlier.

Overall, India’s CFR rose from 2.9% to 3.4% as the country now has had 11,919 fatalities from 353,853 infections.

While the first 5,000 deaths took 80 days, the latest 5,000 fatalities came in just 17 days, with more than 2,500 being reported in just the last week.

The first death due to Covid-19 in India was reported on March 12, with a 76-year-old man who returned to Kalburgi in Karnataka from Saudi Arabia testing positive and succumbing to the disease.