57 deaths, but Covid-19 killed only 11

Vadodara: Just when it seemed that the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) had started acknowledging deaths of persons who had tested positive for Covid-19 by consistently giving information in its medical bulletin, it has now decided to put brakes on the process.
The civic body has decided that it will not be counting deaths of Covid-19 positive persons whose succumbed due to co-morbidities.
VMC that prepares the medical bulletin for the city and district had been including deaths of all Covid-19 positive persons. But at the same time, it gave a break up of the deaths based on the kind of co-morbidities observed in such cases.
Till Wednesday, it had included 57 deaths in its the bulletin and of these, only 11 had died with Covid-19 being sole cause of death.
VMC on Friday stated that the death audits done till July 1 had now been completed. It added that the death audits had revealed that in 57 cases, it had come to light that Covid-19 was the cause of death. It also clarified that henceforth only deaths caused primarily by Covid-19 will be counted.
The civic body had been drawing flak for dragging its feet on declaring deaths of Covid-19 cases. While the number was many times higher than that being declared, VMC for days and even a couple of weeks did not include a single death in its bulletins.
VMC’s medical officer (health) Dr Devesh Patel said that the system had already been implemented elsewhere. “We will now be declaring Covid-19 deaths as and when audits are available and they reveal that the person had died primarily due to Covid-19,” said Patel.
VMC has also claimed that the system had been worked out as per ICMR guidelines.