‘146 infected died in 6 days, Covid killed only 11’

Rajkot: In the first six days of September, 146 Covid-19 infected persons have died, but data provided by the Death Audit Committee (DAC) of Rajkot district show that only 11 have died due to the deadly virus. The remaining deaths of Covid-19 infected patients have been categorised as ‘non-covid’ deaths.
The Rajkot administration has been facing criticism from the citizens and well as opposition over the data of people dying due to coronavirus in the district. The opposition Congress has even accused the administration of muddling with figures to show lower number of deaths.
The issue came to light when administration reported around 75 Covid deaths during August, whereas the people cremated or buried under Covid-19 protocol during the same month was reportedly above 300 from different crematoriums and burial grounds in the district.
The DAC comprises of experts of the Rajkot civil hospital. According to DAC head Dr Umed Patel, the committee only considers those deaths as caused by the virus where the patient is not suffering from any comorbid conditions like diabetes or hypertension.
The Gujarat government in April had formed DACs in each district to ‘standardise’ the figures of Covid-19 deaths.
“We consider the Covid-19 death only in cases where the primary reason is coronavirus. Our job is to find the cause of death, that means where the process of death started in the body. The patients with comorbidity like diabetes, hypertension, TB, HIV, asthma are already vulnerable. If they did not have any of these diseases, they could not have died because of coronavirus. So, the death of this kind of patients are considered non-covid deaths.”
However, Patel who is also an associate professor of the department of community medicine at PDU Medical College attached to Rajkot civil hospital, admitted “The coronavirus aggravates other diseases and it spreads fast in the body. It also affects those organs first which are already damaged.”
The difference in death figures has triggered dissatisfaction among the citizens. This had prompted the Rajkot collector office to change the practice of disseminating information on Covid-19 by Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) for the city and district health officer for the rural part. The collector office took total control of disseminating information and are releasing consolidated data for the entire district.
It’s is also learnt that district officials have asked the trustees of crematoriums not share figures of cremations under Covid-19 protocol claiming it to be ‘sensitive information’.
Deputy leader of opposition in RMC Mansukh Kalariya said, “We have been saying this since the beginning that the government is trying to hide the actual number of deaths and number of positive cases. We had submitted a memorandum three times demanding transparency but this government is hiding its failure behind the false figures at the cost of public health.”
District collector Remya Mohan could not be contacted for comments.