COVID-19: Mumbai Death Toll to Rise After Data Clean-Up by BMC

The state government had asked the BMC to revisit over 400 fatalities that had not been reported as COVID-19 deaths.

The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the Mumbai is expected to go up after a large data reconciliation exercise by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on the orders of the state government.

According to a report in The Indian Express, atleast 451 deaths of COVID-19 patients had not been reported by the BMC in the official death toll. The discrepancy in the data came about, reportedly, during an exercise to match ICMR numbers with the Maharashtra government’s.

“Once the entire reconciliation exercise is over, the data will be scrutinised and official cases will be updated.” said Maharashtra Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta to The Indian Express.

Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis has been vocal about the unreported deaths, accusing the government of ‘suppressing death numbers’.

And if Govt of Maharashtra’s own circular says that every case should be decided in 7 days, 560 cases of May & 148 cases of June have not been decided yet by the Death Audit Committee in Mumbai.
In spite of being #COVID19 deaths, these numbers do reflect in the State data.

— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) June 15, 2020

The BMC has, reportedly, listed other causes (such as accident and suicide) and duplication of names to explain the ‘missing deaths’.

According to ICMR guidelines, death of any COVID-19 patient has to be officially listed as such, even if the cause of death was due to a cardiac arrest or any other underlying condition.

Mumbai had reported over 2,200 deaths as of Monday night and nearly 60,000 cases.