The burgeoning death notices come amid apprehensions that the number of cases and casualties are being underreported for a variety of reasons
By Abdulhafiz Lakhani Ahmedabad
Obituaries flood newspapers belying official death count, Govt data says 4,218 nCoV deaths, while an investigative report by vernacular newspaper Divya Bhaskar has revealed that 1.23 lakh death certificates have been issued for deaths from nCoV, comorbid diseases & other causes
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Gujarat last year, the state government has been accused of data ‘management’ which essentially means manipulating case tally and death toll figures.
Several media houses including first India and siyasat.net in past have published news reports about the modus operandi of the state’s ruling power.
In a bid to paint a rosy picture in the middle of a pandemic, the government has held back from releasing data on deaths due to comorbid diseases for more than nine months now.
In order to uncover the actual number of deaths in the state, vernacular newspaper Divya Bhaskar on Friday published an investigative story that revealed a total of 1.23 lakh deaths had occurred in the state this year till May 10.
The news report included shocking data of death certificates issued in 33 districts of the state. On the other hand, official data released by the government proclaims only 4,218 deaths reported due to novel coronavirus infection during the same period.
Meanwhile, the number of death certificates issued between January 2020 and May 10, 2020 totalled around 58,000, half the number issued this year.
The report also mentioned that the government had muddied the waters when it came to compiling data of COVID-19 deaths due to comorbid diseases and those without any comorbidity.
A huge discrepancy can be deciphered from the government data for nCoV deaths (4,218) from March 1, 2021 to May 10, 202, and total number of death certificates (1,23,871) issued in 33 districts and eight municipal corporations of the state.
According to information received and gathered from doctors and family members of deceased patients, 80% of all deaths that occurred in the months of March, April and May (till May 10) this year, were of people with existing medical conditions.
Hypertension accounted for 38% of all deaths in the state. A shocking revelation made by Divya Bhaskar was that around 20% of all nCoV deaths were of people below 25 years of age.
Other diseases such as diabetes, kidney and liver disorders accounted for 28% of the death toll during this period.
The number of patients suffering from other diseases was 14%. The number of people who lost their lives due to a heart attack after recovering from COVID-19 was estimated to be between 3,500 and 4,000.
As per doctors, a heart attack can prove to be dangerous for a patient who has recovered from nCoV. The reason for it is the clotting of blood in the heart due to prolonged treatment.
Thus, the coverage taken by the vernacular newspaper revealed actual figures of death certificates issued in the state this year till May 10.
The official data put out by the government does not comply with the number of death certificates issued by local administrations across Gujarat.
Even if a chunk of 1,23,871 deaths were of people who died of natural causes, in accidents, murder, among other reasons, the worrying toll in the midst of a pandemic can only mean that the ‘real’ data has been suppressed.
Even as COVID-19 cases have seen a drop over the past few days, the death toll has almost invariably hovered over 100 daily.
According to on-ground sources, family members and relatives of those deceased have had to resort to standing in queues outside crematoriums awaiting their turn to bid adieu to their loved ones.
Owing to a rise in the number of deaths and unavailability of hearses, they are often spotted with dead bodies loaded in private or hired vehicles.
If any benchmark was needed for the growing menace of COVID-19 in Gujarat, one only has to open the obituary page of local newspapers.
With each passing day, the obituary columns are becoming longer and longer to the point that the daily Saurashtra Bhaskar’s Bhavnagar edition on Thursday set aside eight of its 16 pages for obituary notices.
The burgeoning death notices come amid apprehensions that the number of cases and casualties are being underreported for a variety of reasons.
Saurashtra Bhaskar, a popular Gujarati newspaper, carried 238 obituaries on Thursday, a quantum jump from just 28 two months back on March 6.
Sandesh, another leading Gujarati newspaper, says 12 coronavirus patients died on Wednesday in the Kheda district of Gujarat, while the state government data says only two COVID-19 patients died in Kheda on Wednesday.
Similarly, the Gujarat Samachar newspaper says 25 coronavirus patients died on Wednesday in Gandhinagar, a sharp contrast to the Gujarat government’s claim that no one died due to the virus in Gandhinagar on Wednesday.
Opposition Congress claims that the BJP government in Gujarat is underreporting coronavirus cases to mask the real death count due to the pandemic.
“The Vijay Rupani-led government in the state is suppressing coronavirus death figures to hide the reality from the people,” state Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.
Countering the allegations, the state government maintains that if a coronavirus patient with comorbidities dies, his death may not be attributed to the viral infection and every death is categorised as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines.
As per the state government’s data released on Wednesday, Gujarat recorded 133 deaths due to COVID-19 during the preceding 24 hours.
This data is in stark contrast with the 141 obituaries published in two major Gujarati language newspapers on Thursday, 85 in Gujarat Samachar and 56 in Sandesh.
“The BJP government is hiding the actual death figures to cover up their failures in handling the pandemic. In many villages, the daily death toll is in double figures while the government data shows single figures for the entire district,” the state Congress spokesperson said.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani recently denied reports that the state government was hiding coronavirus fatalities.
“As per ICMR guidelines, if a comorbid patient dies then a committee of experts decides the primary and secondary causes of the death. If the committee identifies the main cause of the death as a heart attack then even though the patient was infected, such death is not counted as caused by coronavirus. This system is followed in the entire country,” the chief minister had said.
The Gujarat High Court on last Wednesday said the steps taken by the state government to contain the spread of COVID- 19 were not enough and further restrictions need to be imposed while keeping in mind people’s welfare.
The observation came after the state government informed the court about measures undertaken to stem the spread of the deadly virus.
“Steps have indeed been taken by the state government …but the same is not enough in the present situation and further steps to break the chain is also required to make the public at large aware about the pandemic and its grave effect on the society by imposing further restrictions as may be thought fit in the present situation,” the court said.
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Abdulhafiz Lakhani, Ahmedabad
Gujarat, India
