Tamil Nadu has been gradually adding backlog COVID-19 deaths to its tally since the last week of May after the cases began to fall.
At least 337 deaths added daily in the media bulletin since the last week of May had actually occurred at least a month before their reporting date, indicating that these deaths happened during the ascending phase of the second wave.
However, it is difficult to ascertain how many such backlog deaths have exactly been reconciled as the media bulletin released daily included deaths reported with varying durations of delay.
For instance, of the 287 deaths reported on June 18, 173 had occurred within three days before the reporting date, 44 had occurred between three days and two weeks, 27 had occurred before two to four weeks and 43 had occurred at least four weeks ago. Two of these deaths were, in fact, reported after a delay more than 50 days.
If deaths reported with a delay of at least two weeks are considered, then the State had reconciled at least 937 such deaths since the last week of May. The reporting of deaths with delays has particularly increased since the second week of June.
From June 1 till June 23, the actual number of deaths occurred were 5,598. In the same period, the State’s media bulletin reported 7,514 deaths, a difference of 1,916. In contrast, during the month of April and May, the reported deaths were lesser than the deaths that occurred. (Please refer to the infographic for more details).
The government has a State-level deaths committee in place to periodically audit and reconcile deaths that were missed.
A senior official from the Medical and Family Welfare Department said that the delays mainly happened at the level of local bodies (in case of deaths in home quarantine) or the private or occasionally government hospitals.
“Once the death reports are received, we do a verification and add it to our daily reporting figures. We want to ensure that all the missed deaths are reported,” he said.