Gujarat Home Minister Pradipsinh Jadeja has refuted allegations that official Covid-19 related deaths in the state are lower than actual deaths. He said that it is incorrect to speculate Covid-19 deaths in the state on the basis of death certificates issued.
Pradipsinh Jadeja said that death registration and certificates have gone online in Gujarat. When a person dies, the death certificate is required for insurance, bank and related reasons and hence, some people register it online. Since the system is still being developed, the possibility of multiple deaths certificates for the same person cannot be ruled out.
In such a case, there would be a discrepancy between death certificates issued and total deaths. He also mentioned that the data was compared to a 71-day period of 2020 when India was under a nationwide lockdown and hence death certificates and registration were allowed to be filed late up to 31st July 2020.
Earlier, it was reported in the media that Gujarat had issued 1.23 lakh death certificates between March 1-May 10 period this year, compared to 58 thousand certificates issued during the same period last year.
Gujarat issued 1.23 lakh death certificates in March 1-May 10 period this year in comparison to 58 thousand issued in the same period last year: Divya Bhaskar
— Deepak Patel (@deepakpatel_91) May 14, 2021
This means Gujarat issued 65,085 more death certificates in March 1-May 10 period this year.
65,085.
(1/n) pic.twitter.com/9a6QZPIKHF
The data indicated that Gujarat issued 65 thousand more death certificates this year compared to the same period last year. It was reported earlier that Gujarat had recorded 11% less deaths in 2020 compared to the previous year.
Times of India had reported that the state had recorded 3.74 lakh deaths in 2020 between January and November, at an average of 1,134 deaths daily, which was 10.8% less than all deaths in 2019. In 2019, 1,271 occurred every day on an average.
During the 71-day period mentioned this year, 1.23 lakh died which amounts to an average of roughly 1732 deaths every day, an increase of 36% from the average daily death figure of 2019 for the entire year. However, this is not a month wise calculation based on 2019 figures and that average may fall by the end of 2021. Furthermore, the increase in population will have to factored in apart from other factors as well.
