Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday said that it is useless to debate over the number of Covid deaths at this moment and the focus should be on ensuring that more affected people recover from the disease. Khattar dubbed pointless allegations that his government was tampering with the data on Covid-related deaths in his state to suppress the overall figures.
While visiting to check the condition of health facilities in Hisar on Monday Khattar told reporters that the government don’t want to tinker with data. He said instead of debates over data, we should focus on how people recover from the disease.
While replying to questions on whether the number of Covid deaths is actually more than the official figures, he said those who died will never come back. There is no point of debating if the number of deaths is actually more or less. He said the government will try their best to save everyone in the state.
Referring to the five deaths in the district on Monday allegedly due to a shortage of oxygen, he said the limitations of the available infrastructure must be taken into consideration. Five Covid-19 patients died in a private hospital due to the shortage of oxygen while the state government denied hospital authorities death claim due to oxygen shortage and ordered a magisterial probe.
Khattar also denied the allegation that his administration was being unresponsive to queries about the disease and its impact. He said on Monday that there is no shortage of medical oxygen in the state while assuring people that the state government was geared up to ensure people do not face any problem amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.
Besides Khattar’s claim of no medical oxygen shortage in the state, Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala written to Union Minister Piyush Goyal and requested him to include remdesivir, oxygen and other items used to treat Covid-19 patients in the Essential Commodities list.
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On Monday, Haryana recorded its highest Covid death toll, with 75 more people succumbing to the disease. The state also reported 11,504 fresh cases on Monday. In Haryana, the latest deaths included nine from Hisar, seven each from Gurgaon and Sirsa and six each from Faridabad, Sonipat and Fatehabad districts.