One-day death toll at 30 after Tamil Nadu adds 7 ‘unrecorded’ fatalities

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu added 30 deaths, some of them from three weeks ago, to its Covid-19 toll on Saturday bringing into focus discrepancies in its count. And, with 1,989 fresh cases, the state’s tally rose to 42,687 cases, 30,444 in Chennai alone.
Earlier this week, TOI had reported that at least 236 Covid-19 deaths in Chennai until June 8 had not been added to the pandemic death register. Now it turns out that two senior officials of the Greater Chennai Corporation, who face blame for the misreporting, are part of a nine-member panel formed to set things right. The committee set up by director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam has had two marathon meetings and reviewed 250 deaths. On Saturday, they added seven deaths that occurred between May 23 and June 7 to the toll. The remaining deaths will be added after the state receives a reply “for clarifications it has sought from the civic agency”, officials said.

City health officer Dr M Jagadeesan, who is the registrar of births and deaths in Chennai, and corporation health officer (statistics) Dr Selvi Ganesan are members of the committee.
Other members of the committee have asked them to stay away. “We asked them not to attend meetings. We don’t know how we can hold them responsible when they are a part of the decision-making team. We have still not prepared any report because Dr Jagadeesan has to sign the report accusing himself of failure,” said a committee member. The revision in toll could push death toll to more than 500 and push up mortality rates close to 1.5% from the existing 0.9%. “Our primary aim is early detection and intensified treatment to prevent deaths,” said health minister C Vijayabaskar.
As the number of patients in Chennai went up with 1,487 cases on Saturday,, government hospitals were slowly increasing the number of beds for Coid-19 patients. Stanley Medical College added 100 beds to the existing 400 on Saturday. “Many patients were sick and could not be transferred to Covid care centres. By the month-end we plan to double our Covid bed strength,” said Stanley hospital Dean Dr P Balaji.
“Many patients with kidney diseases are being brought to government hospitals as private hospitals are turning them away. We now have three dialysis machines and we will be adding 10 more soon, “ the Stanley hospital dean said.
While doctors and facilities were being rushed to the state capital, epidemiologists warned about the increasing cases in other districts. On Saturday, barring eight districts, spike in cases was recorded by all districts. While Tiruvannamalai had 50 fresh cases, Tuticorin had 30 and Madurai recorded 15 cases.
In the morning, the health minister also flagged off 254 mobile health units to criss-cross the city to screen people for fever and other symptoms of Covid-19. At a press conference that followed, the minister eaded answers on the number of people being tested in Chennai every day, but said the state had screened more than 6 lakh people – highest in the country. He admitted that the infection rate was beginning to exert pressure on the healthcare system. “We are doing our best to scale up human resources and infrastructure,” he said.