A majority of COVID-19 deaths in the country over the past few days have been reported from Kerala, the official data says. Out of the 50 fatalities reported on Saturday, April 30, as many as 45 were from Kerala, besides two each from Delhi and Maharashtra, and one from Uttar Pradesh. Though Karnataka reported the most deaths on April 29, Kerala’s fatality numbers remained the highest on both April 28 and April 27. In fact, of the 32 fatalities reported on Wednesday, up to 26 were from Kerala, while four were from Maharashtra, and one each from Delhi and Mizoram. On the following day, 36 of the total 39 new fatalities across the country came from Kerala, while one each was reported from Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The southern state’s current pandemic-related death rate stands at 1.06%.
It was on April 10 that the state government put a stop to the daily COVID-19 media bulletin issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, reportedly because the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the state had been more or less the same for a month. However, daily updates and other consolidated data including the number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, vaccinations and quarantine continue to be published in the Kerala government’s dashboard daily. The date shows that while up to 314 fresh cases were reported on April 2, the number of new cases on April 30 stood at 337. This number has gone below 200 only twice this month. At present, Kerala’s test positivity rate stands at 2.61.
Meanwhile, the decision to halt the daily media bulletin invited criticism from various quarters, with the Union government on April 18 directing the state to provide updated COVID-19 data daily. “It has been observed that Kerala has reported its state-level COVID-19 data after a gap of five days (since April 13). This has impacted and skewed the status of India’s key monitoring indicators such as cases, deaths and positivity. India has reported a 90% increase in new cases and 165% increase in positivity in a single day,” said Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal in his letter to the state. He also stated that daily and diligent reporting of data was critical to arrive at a meaningful understanding of the pandemic situation.
However, Kerala Health Minister Veena George alleged that the claim that the state was not updating the COVID-19 data daily was false. “Kerala has submitted COVID-19 data on a daily basis to the Union government. There is digital evidence to prove that. Though the bulletin was stopped on April 10, the daily data was collected and provided to the Union government,” she wrote on her Facebook page. She added that the daily media bulletin was halted by the government to avoid spreading unnecessary fear, at a time when people are coming to terms with the fact that they have to live with COVID-19.
Kerala currently has the second highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the country, with as many as 69,068 people having lost their lives to the virus. Maharashtra has the highest death toll at 1,47,842. Kerala also comes second in terms of the number of cases, having reported more than 69 lakh COVID-19 infections so far. Up to 98.9% of infected persons in the state have recovered.