THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: One more claim by Kerala about its Covid management has fallen flat. The government used to highlight the low mortality rate as a success of the Kerala model, but the state is now second in the country in terms of the total number of deaths.
As the state keeps adding deaths from the previous two waves — which were dubiously omitted from the official list initially — its mortality rate (0.93%) is inching closer to the national average of 1.3%.
In the last three months, the state added 18,542 such deaths, which form 38% of the total official toll.
Kerala had claimed a low case fatality ratio (deaths among the total cases detected) of 0.4% also to be an achievement.
“The government’s narrative has been that we’ve the lowest mortality rate, which is no longer true. States like Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana have a lower rate,” said health economist Rijo M John, who closely tracks Covid management across the country. His analysis is based on the reported deaths from different states.
Kerala is far behind Maharashtra (1.42 lakh deaths), but way ahead of the neighbouring states.
While Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been adding deaths in single digit for a while, Kerala has been adding in triple digits. The state reported 221 deaths on Thursday, taking the total toll to 49,116.
Government’s approach on Covid death count draws flak
The surge in daily death count started in October when it added the fatalities that were left out earlier, for which the government faced criticism from activists.
The process is far from over as 10,220 claims are still pending before the health department for inclusion.
Dr N M Arun, a public health activist who championed for better transparency in the reporting of Covid deaths, said the methods adopted by the health department are not right even now.
“Not many details are available on the pending deaths being added. Information such as date of death, age, sex, comorbidity and vaccination status of the dead are required to study the impact of Covid,” said Arun. But the districtwise death toll shows the glaring differences in underreporting.
Arun pointed out that Idukki, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Kottayam have the dubious distinction of high number of underreporting when compared to other districts.
Health Minister Veena George said 7,000 other deaths were not included in the list initially due to technical reasons.
Of them, 3,779 were added later along with the backlog. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare criticised the state citing inadequacies in the recording and reporting mechanism.