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Kerala govt hiding Covid death toll, case should be filed against CM: Cong MP
Being one of the worst-affected states from the pandemic across India, Kerala has till now recorded 22,987 deaths. On Wednesday, 208 more patients succumbed to Covid-19.
Benny Behanan, a Congress MP, hit out at the Kerala government on Wednesday over the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic by alleging that the latter is hiding the death toll due to the viral disease and demanded that a case should be filed against chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, according to news agency ANI.
Being one of the worst-affected states from the pandemic across India, Kerala has till now recorded 22,987 deaths. On Wednesday, 208 more patients succumbed to Covid-19.
Addressing reporters on Wednesday, Behanan alleged that the death toll announced by chief minister Vijayan is “absolutely wrong”, adding that “In every hospital, there is a census. The reports have to be countersigned by the hospital Superintendent and the CMO.”
Citing the example of Kottayam district to explain his point about the Kerala government hiding deaths, the Congress MP said he visited the Kottayam medical college where he received information that in 177 days, the deaths due to Covid-19 in the institute were 1,326. However, the government list showed the total deaths in the Kottayam district stood at 926, Behanan said.
He also pointed out that all hospitals are required to submit a report to a medical body in Thiruvananthapuram but there are no medical experts in this body. “The list is being scrutinised by the medical body as it is working in the favour of the government,” Behanan further said.
The Covid-19 situation in Kerala has been seeing an improvement for the past few days. Since Monday, the state’s daily tally has been a little over the 15,000-mark, which is much lower from the first week of September when over 30,000 people were getting infected daily.
However, the daily cases went up again on Wednesday when 17,681 people were detected Covid-19 positive while 208 patients died and 25,588 recovered from the viral disease. With this, the caseload has climbed to 4,424,046 including 22,987 deaths, 4,209,746 recoveries and 190,750 active cases. Of Wednesday’s case count, Thiruvananthapuram added highest with 2,143 fresh cases followed by Kottayam (1,702), Kozhikode (1,680), Ernakulam (1,645) among others.
Even though the situation is not as severe as it was in the first week of September, Kerala continues to contribute the maximum towards the fresh infections across India. On Tuesday, a professor of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told news agency ANI that Kerala had passed its peak and a decline in cases should start in the next two weeks.
