'Not COVID': Stunned by Data, Gujarat Blames Death Certificate Spurt on Duplicate Registrations -Darshan Desai
-TheWire.in The state government says 4,218 people died of Covid in the period March 1-May 10, 2021. But it issued 1,23,871 death certificates in these 71 days – which was 65,781 more than it had for the same period in 2020. Most of these excess deaths are clearly Covid related. Ahmedabad: For the past three months, photos and reports of long queues at crematoriums and cemeteries in the national and the local media flew in the face of the Gujarat government’s official Covid-19 data released every evening. While anecdotal evidence and surveys of obituary notices in local newspapers made it clear the official death toll in the ongoing second wave of the pandemic was an undercount, confirmation about the scale of the cover-up emerged only on Friday when the Gujarati daily, Divya Bhaskar published the results of its investigation into the number of official death certificates issued by the government over March, April and May of this year and compared these figures with the corresponding period last year. Backed up by a district-wise and major city-wise break-up of the data, Divya Bhaskar noted that the Gujarat government had issued 1,23,871 death certificates in 71 days between March 1, 2021, and May 10, 2021. This was more than double the number issued for the corresponding period in 2020, which was 58,000 death certificates. In the absence of any other major factor contributing to mortality, it is clear that these 65,781 excess deaths were actually caused by the surge in Covid infections the state this year, though the cause of death for 80% of these is listed as hypertension, diabetes and other co-morbidities. However, the government’s official Covid death toll for March 1-May 10, 2021 is just 4,218, While the media in Gujarat has continuously reported how the state government has been hiding the actual numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths, officials and ministers have so far maintained a stoic silence over the discrepancy. Please click here to read more. |
TheWire.in, 16 May, 2021, https://thewire.in/health/not-covid-stunned-by-data-gujarat-blames-death-certificate-spurt-on-duplicate-registrations
Tagged with: Gujarat Death certificates Death registration Divya Bhaskar Government of Gujarat Comorbidities Diabetes Hypertension Data suppression
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