Coronavirus: Tamil Nadu CM denies fudging of Covid-19 death data

SALEM: Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday said the state government was not hiding Covid-19 deaths.
"It is impossible to hide Covid-19 deaths. There is no need for the state government to hide the deaths, be it in Chennai or elsewhere in the state," Palaniswami told reporters in Salem after inaugurating a flyover built at a cost of Rs 441 crore.
“We have been updating the actual number of death and informing the media regularly. There is no secrecy in it," he said.
The CM also said there was so much awareness among the public that it would be impossible to hide the cause of death. "If anyone dies of Covid-19 and if their details do not figure on the state government list, their relatives will immediately approach the media and expose it," he said.
At the same time, EPS said many people died of other health complications . “We should not attribute those deaths to Covid-19,” he said.
The CM's statement comes in the wake of TOI report on Wednesday that a team of health department officials from the Directorate of Public Health (DPH) had visited Ripon Buildings and verified the death records maintained by the Greater Chennai Corporation. They found 236 more Coivid-19 deaths.
EPS reiterated that there was no need for the state government to hide Covid-19 deaths. “A few private hospitals in the state failed to submit their death related reports to the state health officials,” he said, adding that, the health minister had ordered officials to check with the concerned private hospitals for not sending the death reports to the state government.