Shocking: 451 missing coronavirus deaths in mumbai
Coronavirus Deaths in Mumbai: It is reported that more than 450 deaths due to Coronavirus have not been reported by BMC in Mumbai. This comes at a time when COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra is exceeding 3K mark daily with maximum being reported from Mumbai.
BMC or Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, is the civic body of Mumbai. In fact it is the richest Municipal Corporation of India having annual budget exceeding many smaller states of India. However, in the COVID-19 period the inefficiency of BMC could be witnessed clearly. BMC steering committees are headed by the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray’s party Shiv Sena with support from the BJP for over 25 years now.
Till date Mumbai alone has reported over 59K cases with over 2200 deaths due to COVID-19. According to report at least 451 coronavirus deaths in Mumbai was not reported by BMC. The discrepancy came up during an exercise to match COVID-19 figures of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) portal with the Maharashtra government’s. On June 10, each district was informed to report if there was a mismatch in figures. Health Secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas wrote to all to submit the updated data, by Monday June 15.
After the completion of exercise it was found that 451 deaths were missing from the data reported by BMC. Former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wrote to CM Uddhav Thackeray and raised his concerns about the underreporting of cases in the state. He further asserted that there might be over 500 death cases missing from the files of BMC.
The mortality rate in Mumbai currently is 3.7%, which is much higher than the national average of 2.8%. After such findings the functioning of BMC has been brought under scanner. BMC was being criticised from Day 1 due to their inability to control the spread of COVID-19 in city and for the deteriorating state of Health services in the Mumbai. This incident will further add up to their inefficient work culture. The COVID-19 fight of BMC has put a question mark on functioning of India’s richest Civic body.
Low testing may be contributing to increased coronavirus deaths in mumbai
We had earlier reported that the death rate in Maharashtra was getting worse.
It appears Maharashtra’s death rate has worsened over the last two weeks. Between 17th of May and 31st of May, for every 100 deaths, 1900 people recovered. Between 1st of June and 15th of June, for every 100 deaths, there were just 1500 recoveries
The increase in death rate coincides with a Slowdown in Testing in Maharashtra. Tests which increased at the rate of 82% in the first two weeks of May and 77% in the last two weeks of May have increased by only 45% increase in June
The slowdown in itself means nothing but when there is a spike in deaths, it means the State is not Testing enough leading to late detection in cases!
The new data about coronavirus deaths in Mumbai confirms our analysis that the lower testing is hurting the state. We have seen across many states that as soon as a state reduces the pace of testing, it results in increased death rate as citizens arrive at the hospital a little later than they should.
In the meanwhile local trains have begun to operate in Mumbai. They are meant for essential services only but one estimate puts the number of such staff at about 1.25 lakh people.
The common people and specifically the many million poor in Mumbai are going through extreme hardship due to Coronavirus. It is hoped that the condition in Mumbai will improve in the next few weeks so that the life can return to normality to some extent. The most critical component is a sense of normality in life which is missing for a long time now.