Covid-19: ‘Unrecorded’ deaths in Punjab now part of Health Department data

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 1

In what seems to be an attempt to underplay the death count, some districts kept on passing the Covid deaths as “discharged patients” during the second wave.

This came to fore now as these “unrecorded deaths” are being added to the health department’s records. The department added 56 fresh deaths to its records in a single day on Tuesday.

In the entire month of August, a total of 137 deaths were added to the Covid bulletin. But out of these, just 44 took place in August and the rest 93 took place in months of April and May.

In district-wise break-up, Mansa health authorities seemed to be the worst record keeper as they failed to record 64 deaths. Out of these, 37 were passed on as “discharged patients”. It is followed by Fatehgarh Sahib with 11 unrecorded deaths, SBS Nagar (7), Patiala (6), Ferozepur (4), Pathankot (2) and Kapurthala and Tarn Taran with one each.

The same practice was witnessed during the month of July, when “unrecorded deaths” made around 30 per cent of the total deaths of the July.

Dr Rajesh Bhaskar, state’s nodal officer for Covid, said most of these deaths that had gone unrecorded were from private hospitals and facilities located outside the state.

As per records, a total of 16,431 persons have died due to Covid since the outbreak. However, the government found that in the Civil Registration System during the pandemic year, there were 52,656 excess deaths in Punjab as compared to previous years. A significant number of these were related to Covid. Thus, excess deaths in Punjab could be 2.8 times the reported Covid deaths. However, the state says that this ratio is lower as compared to other states from where data has been reported in the state media bulletins.

Now, only second dose on Sundays

• The Health Department has decided to earmark Sundays to exclusively administer the second dose of vaccine
• The department said it would hold vaccination sessions for the second dose at all centres on the designated day
• “As vax coverage for second dose is critical for successful impact, there is a greater need to give impetus to it,” the order said