There is no under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths in Kerala and the state has been following the death protocol in letter and spirit while the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has lauded it several times, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said while addressing the media on Saturday.
“Reporting all deaths under such trying circumstances is difficult. We haven’t done deliberate under-reporting. If there are complaints we will look into them,” he said
His reply at a time when many complaints surfaced regarding the under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths in the state. A section of media stated that the government reported only 404 Covid-19 deaths officially in May while the actual figure was more than 10,000. Local bodies’ death registration figures contradicted the official data in the last three months, media reports based on the reply obtained under the Right to Information Act, indicated.
The CM cited the case of a north Indian state and said when more than one lakh died in that state, the official toll was only 2,461. He said such things will never happen in a state like Kerala.
“Such a situation never arose in Kerala. We reported at least one death out of three. There is no deliberate attempt towards this,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“Such a situation never arose in Kerala. We reported at least one death out of three. There is no deliberate attempt towards this,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}But the opposition Congress said its workers have started compiling details of all Covid-19 deaths and it will release it if the government failed to do so by next week.
Though the CM expressed concern over the high test positivity rate (TPR), he said there is no need to panic about this. Vijayan said in many states, the second wave started in March and peaked immediately but in Kerala, it began in May and its progression is slow.
Meanwhile, the state reported 14,087 new cases on Saturday with a test positivity rate of 10.7 per cent. The average TPR of the last seven days in the state was 10.4, health ministry statistics show.
Kerala has an active caseload of 1,15,226 infected patients. For almost a month, the state has been reporting almost one-third of the total Covid-19 cases in the country.