Kerala govt admits 'under-reporting' of COVID deaths, adds 7000 more fatalities to list

The CPM-led Kerala government on Saturday, October 9, admitted on the floor of the state assembly of underreporting over 7,000 virus-related deaths in the total tally. Kerala Health Minister Veena George informed the Assembly that of the total COVID death tally over 7,000 deaths were found to be not included. She claimed that the misinformation of the data was observed due to technical lapses like missing out on patients' details and wasn't an intentional act of the government to exclude deaths from the list. In the last assembly session, George affirmed that the department would publish the updated list in three days.

The Congress-led opposition demanded an adjournment motion to discuss the 'under-reporting' of COVID deaths and the 'weak' management by the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government amid the pandemic. After the health minister admitted of hiding the deaths that occurred due to COVID-19, the opposition walked out of the state assembly as a protest against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for not providing accurate data. 

Kerala Govt violated ICMR guidelines: Congress leader Satheesan

Opposition leader V.D Satheesan said, “The government was reluctant to release the death toll before June 16. It also violated the ICMR guideline that deaths of people, suffering from deadly diseases like cancer and who died due to coronavirus infection, should be considered as COVID-19 death". 

Veena George denies allegation 

Responding to oppositions' allegation, George said "The process of registration was done based on the guidelines of ICMR. The department took the initiative to include the excluded cases in the list,” Seh further told reporters that online entry of COVID-19 deaths started in hospitals during June, this year and the missed out numbers were of earlier months which will be documented to the list. 

So far, Kerala had officially reported a total of 25,952 deaths with a 0.54 per cent case fatality rate. According to a recent Supreme Court verdict, the state government should provide compensation of Rs 50,000 to families of victims who died of COVID. And so, the government has launched an online service to avail COVID death certificates.

To date, Kerala has reported a total of 47.7 COVID-19 cases. The state has administered a total of 3,66,09,931 COVID vaccine doses across 240 vaccination sites. 

(With ANI input)

(Image: @VEENAGEORGE/FACEBOOK/PTI)