On Sunday, Maharashtra was in the lead with 70 deaths, followed by West Bengal with 47 and Delhi with 33, according to the union’s health ministry. A total of 336 deaths were recorded in the country. While the country’s death rate is 1.4%, Maharashtra’s remains at 2.5%.
On December 1, Delhi passed Maharashtra to record the highest deaths in a 24-hour window. The state capital had 108 while Maharashtra had 80. By December 8, Maharashtra had indeed fallen to third place, with Delhi and West Bengal causing 63 and 48 deaths respectively, compared to the state’s 40. Also on December 9, Delhi had surpassed the state to report the highest deaths in the country.
Interestingly, Kerala, which has reported the highest daily new discoveries, has managed to keep the deaths under control. It was reported between 29 and 35 deaths in December and ranked fourth on the daily mortality list.
Kerala also has the second highest active case number after Maharashtra while West Bengal has the third highest. Punjab and Haryana are the other two states that are consistently on the list of the five states with the highest daily Covid deaths.
Maharashtra officials defended the state’s numbers, saying its death curve was steadily declining. In December, the state reported an average of 80 deaths per day, with the highest being 127 on December 4 and the lowest 40 on December 6 and December 7. By comparison, the average daily deaths for the first two weeks of November were 115.
At its peak, the state had recorded as many as 400 deaths in a day, said state surveillance officer Dr. Pradeep Awate. According to him, the state effectively registers 30-50 deaths per day, but the official toll is usually higher as previously unrecorded deaths have been added. “There is also the factor of transparency and labeling. We labeled the deaths of chronic patients, including cases of cancer, kidney and heart disease, as Covid deaths when they tested positive. Many other states do not consider them to be Covid deaths, “said Dr. Awate. He said of the 48,269 deaths in Maharashtra, over 80% had some comorbidity.
Former KEM dean Dr. Avinash Supe, chairman of the Mumbai County Death Evaluation Committee, said death rates are pretty much under control. Mumbai, for example, is the worst hit state and now has a 1.8% death rate, he said. “We saw nearly 4,700 cases, but about 70 deaths. Given the burden of comorbidity in our population, that number is not too high, ”he said.