Should TN recount casualties? Jury is out

Should TN recount casualties? Jury is out

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

11.06.2020

As Chennai is all set to add 236 more deaths to the state’s Covid mortality count, there is a lingering doubt on the possibility of a similar mismatch in mortalities recorded due to the virus across the state.

The doubt has also popped up the question whether a statewide exercise was needed to scrutinise records of deaths reported in the past three months and verify the causes again. The opinion is divided. While a section of health experts says that there could be underreporting and a statewide exercise to verify causes of all recent deaths is necessary, there are experts who say the case of Chennai was different from rest of the state where Covid deaths are reported diligently.

For now, the state government constituted committee has been tasked with scrutinising the records in Greater Chennai Corporation alone. Deputy directors of health services in districts and city health officers in municipal corporations across the state say they have not received any such instructions from the government.

“Under reporting would be there and chances are that it could be high. All deaths in hospitals should be declared as Covid deaths unless they are clinically proved otherwise. Domiciliary deaths should also be checked across the state,” said G R Ravindranath, general secretary of Doctors Association for Social Equality (DASE). He said deaths in case of people with severe acute respiratory infections should also be recorded as suspected or probable Covid deaths. He said in addition to Rt-PCR tests, antibody tests should also be done among people and record deaths accordingly, which will give a more accurate reading of Covid mortality.

A senior public health expert, however, said that the situation in Chennai need not be same across the state as far as recording and reporting of deaths was concerned. He said the possibility of omissions in districts was less since the administrative layers were less unlike Chennai and district collectors keep a close watch in the current scenario.

“I am not ruling out under reporting. But it would be less if at all there was under reporting,” he said. He said that though there was no need for statewide verification of deaths, the government can carry out such an exercise to build credibility of the system. “They can do it at least in cities to build trust,” he said.

Health officials from various districts told TOI that there could not be under reporting in their jurisdictions. Health officials noted that in Chennai there were hundreds of cases and dozens of deaths, where in most of the districts deaths were only in single digits.

A health officer said that all the deaths are registered within three to five days. The maximum time for registering deaths is 21 days. “Village administrative officers and panchayat secretaries scrunitise each and every death and ascertain the cause. We take the help of police too and update death records every week,” said T Manivannan, city health officer and DDHS in-charge of Vellore.