Ahmedabad: After the RAP Supreme Court, having a Covid death calculation method changed in Gujarat? Not much, indicating senior state government officers.
Top sources say that ‘Covid Deaths Audit Commites’ is still active in cities and districts to ensure how many patients have comorbidity and how many are in a high-risk category.
“All hospitals send data to the central repository at the city or district level.
After verifying the numbers, these committees send it to the State Health Department for consolidation,” said a senior city-based hospital doctor.
“There is no new notification of the calculation of death after the first based on the provisions of the Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR).” This guideline, which was released by 2020, has put the method of recording Covid death to understand the underlying causes.
However, experts say that the guidelines are misinterpreted by countries including Gujarat to record only deaths that are ‘only covid causes’, without comorbidity such as hypertension, diabetes, and factors such as old age.
“The Committee still met to decide how many deaths caused solely due to the impact of Covid,” said a government senior official for anonymity conditions.
“However, we can say that we do not hide the death rate.” Manoj Aggarwal, ACS (Health), said that he had to check the latest rules.
“I’ll be back in detail,” he told Toi.
Gujarat has recorded 5,314 “official” deaths in April and May last year, contributing half of the official counting of 10,614.
In the ‘third wave’ starting in mid-January, the state has recorded 470 deaths so far.
Experts show that this method must be more transparent to provide a true and fair picture.