Editorial: When death doesn’t count

Chennai

As reported in this newspaper earlier this week, the number of coronavirus deaths as tallied by the Greater Chennai Corporation outstripped that put out by the Health department by a significant figure. The government’s explanation for this is the communication gap that arose as a result of the time taken to process COVID-19 deaths, particularly from the slew of private hospitals in the city treating patients with the disease.

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said there was no need to hide any data but also added that private hospitals “failed to submit their death-related reports to the state health officials.” But even if it was a mere “communication gap”, there is no escaping the fact that this was a serious lapse. Underestimating COVID-19 cases poses the risk of under-preparing healthcare infrastructure to tackle the disease. Also, given the number of asymptomatic cases, as much as an estimated 80 per cent in Tamil Nadu, such misreporting increases the chance of the virus spreading stealthily or unknowingly. That the under-reporting occurred in Chennai – Tamil Nadu’s epicentre for the pandemic – is all the more worrying. Over 25,000 of Tamil Nadu’s 36,000-odd cases are in Chennai – the figure is considerably lower in percentage terms in most other State capitals. In short, under-reporting in Chennai has very serious implications for the city and the State.

The big question, of course, is whether under-reporting, in this or other forms, exists in other States. A group of medical professionals has written to the Chief Minister of West Bengal, where there is a lot of incredulousness about official figures, urging her to “take responsibility for accurate and consistent reporting of COVID-19 data.” In Delhi too, there are reports that deaths tallied by its municipal corporation outstrip those provided by the government. The Corporation, of course, is controlled by the BJP, whose members have charged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of window-dressing the numbers. A proper audit is required not only in these States but in all others in the country.

The coronavirus threat is too important to allow numbers to become a playground for politics, for the temptation to make a State appear to have done better than it has. Unfortunately, the tendency to refrain from aggressive testing appears to have become another strategy to play down incidence. Tamil Nadu fares better than other States on the testing front, but this is only a small relief. For one, no Indian state is testing enough; all of them fall short, and by a very long way. For another, given the number of asymptomatic cases, it will be no surprise if the total incidence number is also something of an undercount. All in all, we have a long way to go in improving our response to the pandemic. Misreporting is the last thing one needs at a juncture like this.