Mumbai: The COVID-19 death numbers in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra surged to 5,510 on Tuesday from 4,128 on Monday due to the data reconciliation exercise carried out by the state government. The rise was on account of 862 deaths in Mumbai and 466 in the rest of Maharashtra, reported in the data reconciliation.
Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta told the Free Press Journal, "A total of 1,328 additional deaths will be added to the COVID-19 death toll of the state. These were deaths of COVID patients and were marked as non-COVID."
As reported by FPJ, the state government had on Monday admitted that there were discrepancies in the data released on COVID-19.
Several instances had emerged of deaths being accounted for under comorbidity instead of the virus. Therefore, the state government had asked all district collectors and municipal commissioners to reconcile the number of deaths by Monday evening.
Under the provisions of the Epidemic Act, 1897, they had been told to report all deaths, irrespective of the cause, if found positive for the virus. Death numbers were found to be not properly tabulated and therefore the state government had asked all district & municipal administration to reconcile the data. In some cases, Covid 19 patients had died but the cause was shown as cardiac arrest. On Monday, Mehta had said the government would not hide any data, but reveal it after the reconciliation exercise. He had reiterated that the government will take action against those who were responsible for hiding data on COVID-19 deaths.
Meanwhile, leader of oppn in state assembly Devendra Fadnavis has attacked the state government and demanded stern action against those responsible for hiding the crucial data. The CMO said in a statement: CM Uddhav Thackeray had mandated exhaustive data reconciliation last week.
On June 13, the state asked all DCs/commissioners to check with all local labs and hospitals on the same. The State is fighting Covid with absolute honesty and it holds transparency sacred. Data reconciliation and tally will be done every few weeks so as to ensure complete transparency. Earlier de-duplication of cases was carried out in similar fashion."
