For the last several days, over 300,000 people in India are being infected by the coronavirus daily, as per official data.
The country, in the last 24 hours, has reported 4 lakh 14 thousand new cases of Covid-19 and total number of cases has reached over 2 crore 14 lakh. In the last 24 hours, 3 thousand 915 deaths have been reported. Death toll in the country due to the pandemic has reached 2 lakh 34 thousand 83. The Health Ministry said that currently there are over 36 lakh 45 thousand active cases.
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This high number is despite the low rate of testing being done in the country to detect the virus-infected people. At several places, civic and government health officials are even refusing to carry out the test saying that they do not have an adequate number of testing kit, which has led to a new guideline on RT-PCR. It has been estimated that the actual number of Covid19 patients in the country is at least ten times more than the official figure.
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In parallel, a huge gap is present between the official figure of deaths from Covid-19 and the aggregate of dead bodies being cremated and buried in crematoriums, graveyards, or dumped in the rivers. The difference between the number of bodies disposed of in crematorium and graveyard and the official figure of deaths due to Covid-19 is estimated to be at least ten times more.
For instance, the official death toll on April 12, in Ahmedabad, the home town of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, was given as 20 whereas a widely circulated Gujarati language newspaper ‘Sandesh’ reported that 64 deaths of Covid-19 patients had occurred in just one hospital on that day.
Similarly, as per a report, the official number of people who died in Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh, was 34 in a fortnight whereas crematoriums and graveyards of the city had performed the last rites of more than 800 people. How to relate this gap? What is it if not data-fudging or rather hiding of data?
The vast gap between the official death toll and the number of dead bodies cremated or buried was brought out by The Financial Times, which has collated reports from several states. It pointed out that the difference in the numbers is very high particularly in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and to some extent in Bihar.
Regional newspapers across the country have been reporting piling up of dead bodies outside crematoriums and burial grounds as there is a waiting period of 6 to 10 hours for a body to get cremated or buried. Far away from the attention of the national mainstream media, which is focused on the Oxygen situation in Delhi, all major cities of Gujarat, new crematoriums have been opened by social organizations and government too to ease the pressure on the existing ones.
Even the rate of testing has been sluggish all across the country inspite of the directive by GOI to speed up testing, tracing and treating coronavirus infected people.
The government’s data of coronavirus testing has been questioned by even the Gujarat High Court, which has taken up a PIL suo moto. The HC has reprimanded government for fudging the numbers with a stern warning to come out with factual figures.
The home state of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah paints a stark or rather grim picture regarding testing. Even the staff of the primary health centres in Gujarat have urged the state government to supply more number of testing kits as they are unable to test more than 10 persons on a day.
Similar complaints have also been reported from states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Odisha. Important point to note here is that like Gujarat, three of these states have BJP in the ruling regime in state governments.
As the number of Covid19 infections and deaths have been spiralling as a result of the second wave of the pandemic, both government and private hospitals are witnessing a deluge of patients.
In places like Delhi, and in cities of UP & Gujarat, there has been an acute shortage of beds in hospitals. Every day, across day and night, long lines of ambulances carrying patients are seen outside hospitals, even as it is taking the ambulance service as long as ten to 12 hours to respond to an emergency call. Amid a fear of censure by the government, the social media platforms are flooded with SOS posts from friends and relatives of corona patients seeking admission in hospitals and oxygen for persons in critical conditions gasping for breath. Even hospitals are not being spared for reporting the shortage of Oxygen or reporting of Covid-deaths, especially in UP. But, higher courts have stepped in to protect especially the citizens from censure by the government in asking for helping. The higher courts have recently provided a lot of pressure on the government to provide Oxygen and help the citizens in the Covid19 situation.
While the public health care system across Delhi, UP and Gujarat appears to have crumbled in the second wave of Covid19, good Samaritan individuals and philanthropic social organizations are offering medical grade Oxygen to the critically ill patients.
In such a situation, the data gap between actual and reported figures (especially of the Covid-deaths) point to the intension of the GOI in hiding the actual picture of the healthcare, and the Covid-deaths.
(Sandesh, HT, The Financial Times)
