Maharashtra set to get tracking technology for transparency

Following allegations of 'missing' data on COVID-related deaths, the state government's statement said in addition to the 81 deaths reported on Tuesday, an additional 1,328 deaths which had occurred earlier were added to the tally taking the state's death toll to 5,537. The state government is now planning to bring in a software that will track the COVID cases to maintain transparency.

The clarification from the civic body and the state government came after allegations by BJP leader and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who said that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had not accounted for over 950 deaths in the city. Further inquiry indicated that the details on the deaths of some COVID patients had not been documented accurately. On Tuesday, state health department officials said that 862 deaths in Mumbai and 466 deaths in the rest of the state that had occurred in the past, were added to the tally.

Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta said that no data was intentionally hidden, and added that proper data management is crucial in order to plan the approach ahead. "The system is overloaded and we are slowly building it up to ensure that the data remains updated. Going forward, we are creating software batches which will automatically track the cases. If the data is not updated properly, then red flags will be raised. Each district will have a separate portal and it will all be consolidated," he said.

After the addition of the deaths, the mortality rate of Maharashtra jumped from 3.7 per cent recorded on Monday to 4.8 per cent on Tuesday. Among the 81 deaths reported on Tuesday, state health officials said 55 deaths occurred in Mumbai, 11 were in Mira Bhayandar, eight in Pune, two each in Bhiwandi, Kalyan Dombivali and Ahmednagar and one in Pimpri Chinchwad. Mumbai's death toll now stands at 3,157 cases. More than 2,700 fresh cases of COVID-19 were reported in Maharashtra and 935 of them were from Mumbai. Currently, 50,044 COVID patients are being treated at various medical facilities in the state and 1,802 patients were discharged on Tuesday after a full recovery. The COVID count for the state now stands at 1,13,445 cases. Additionally, 144 patients from Mumbai and 140 patients from Thane also tested positive and are yet to be added to the tally.

While K East ward continues to have the highest number of cases with 4,130 cases, G North ward continued to be second highest with 3,917 cases. While Dharavi had 21 new cases, Dadar had 34 new cases and there were 20 cases in Mahim.

Clarification on policy
The civic body has issued a clarification on the policy for COVID testing involving private laboratories. In a corrigendum to an earlier circular, the BMC said that no positive test report shall be shared by the laboratory with patients or with private hospitals directly. On June 5, BMC had allowed high-risk contacts to be tested at home without a prescription from a general physician. The revised circular said that once results are shared with the civic body, they will be shared with the concerned hospitals or individuals.

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New cases reported in city

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