The government of Tamil Nadu added the deaths of at least 13 persons from Madurai district in state COVID-19 death tally in the past few days after due reconciliation process. According to a report, these deaths have been added now based on the latest guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
As per the latest guidelines of the ICMR, deaths that occur due to other health issues shall also be recorded under COVID-19, if the victim tested positive for the coronavirus. The deaths that have been added recently occurred between June 21 and July 13 and the test results of seven of them had returned positive for coronavirus after their deaths. The addition of 13 deaths has increased the total COVID-19 death toll to 253 in the district.
This is similar to the addition of 444 deaths in Chennai, which was left unreconciled due to the confusion in reporting by the local authorities and hospitals. The deaths which were left out in Chennai’s COVID-19 tally occurred between March 1 and June 10 and the discrepancies were pointed out and flagged by several media reports and NGOs. Following this, the district administrations across Tamil Nadu were instructed to reconcile the deaths in a timely manner and ensure nothing is missed out from the bulletin.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu recorded 5,875 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, taking the number of patients who are getting treatment for the disease in the state to 56,998. Madurai district reported 178 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday and six deaths. The state also reported 98 new deaths on Sunday and 5,517 persons were discharged on recovery from COVID-19. A total of 4,132 persons have died in Tamil Nadu due to COVID-19 as of Sunday.
The state also tested 60,344 samples belonging to 58,505 persons on Sunday. The total number of samples tested in Tamil Nadu till Sunday is over 27.79 lakh.