On Sunday, Maharashtra with 70 deaths was at the top, followed by West Bengal with 47 and Delhi 33, according to data from the Union Ministry of Health. A total of 336 deaths were registered in the country. While the country’s fatality rate is 1.4%, Maharashtra’s is still 2.5%.
On December 1, Delhi passed through Maharashtra to record the highest deaths in a 24-hour window. The national capital had 108, while Maharashtra had 80. On December 8, Maharashtra had, in fact, dropped to third place with Delhi and West Bengal contributing 63 and 48 deaths respectively compared to 40 for the state. On December 9 as well, Delhi had surpassed the state to report the highest deaths in the country.
Interestingly, Kerala, which has been reporting the highest daily detections, has managed to keep deaths under control. It has been reporting between 29 and 35 deaths in December and remained in fourth position on the daily mortality table.
Kerala also has the second highest number of active cases after Maharashtra, while West Bengal has the third highest. Punjab and Haryana are the other two states that regularly appear on the list of the five states with the highest number of daily deaths from Covid.
Maharashtra officials defended the state’s figures, saying its death graph was steadily declining. In December, the state reported an average of 80 deaths a day, with the highest being 127 on December 4 and the lowest 40 on December 6 and December 7. Compared to this, the average daily deaths in the first two weeks of November were 115.
At its peak, the state had seen as many as 400 deaths in one day, said state watchdog Dr. Pradeep Awate. According to him, the state is effectively registering between 30 and 50 deaths a day, but the official figure is usually higher due to the sum of previous unrecorded deaths. “There is also the transparency and labeling factor. We refer to deaths of chronic patients, including cases of cancer, kidney and heart disease, as Covid deaths if they tested positive. Many other states do not consider them Covid deaths, ”said Dr. Awate. He said that of the 48,269 deaths in Maharashtra, more than 80% had some comorbidity.
Former KEM dean Dr. Avinash Supe, who heads the Mumbai circle’s death audit committee, said death rates are fairly under control. Mumbai, for example, is the worst hit in the state and has a death rate of 1.8% now, he said. “We saw almost 4,700 cases, but around 70 deaths. Given the burden of comorbidity in our population, this number is not too serious, ”he said.
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