Vaccine hesitation among an estimated five to six per cent of eligible individuals, including even the educated and aware, coupled with a new-found willingness to report deaths to claim, could be driving the high death toll in Kerala .
The daily death toll reached around 250 in June this year, recalls Dr TS Anish, a member of the state COVID task force and assistant professor of community medicine at the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram. This number is now approaching 100.
Anish said that the current figures may not show the ground reality. business Line on the phone. He suggested that these numbers could be exaggerated slightly, driven by a combination of factors.
Meanwhile, analyzing the issue of Covid deaths, Anish said that there has been some change in the instrument employed for estimating deaths in Kerala.
“Earlier, we used to confirm a Covid death only if all the known factors agreed. So even a doctor had to give the details to an audit committee at the state level, after whose approval, even if after some time, it would be declared a Covid death. “
lag in reporting deaths
Therefore, initially during the pandemic, the actual death toll being officially reported was many times lower than the actual number of cases. This apparent lack of transparency led to a growing wave of protests, especially on social media, which forced the government to change the rules for assessing deaths.
Accordingly, it accepted the demand for what Anish called an ‘all-inclusive’ style of death reporting in which all COVID positive cases should be reported as such unless proven otherwise. So those with some history of accident and suicide, even if negative at the time of death, are now being counted. The government is more cautious against under-reporting cases as it was reportedly done during the initial days, even if not all are confirmed or intended.
‘Relaxation of rules’
“Now, a doctor on the field or in hand is authorized to declare a COVID death if he has conclusive evidence that if the deceased had tested positive at the time of death or had known complications related to COVID. So death reporting is more transparent, leading to higher numbers,” said Anish.
To this reportedly added, the demand for deaths due to Covid is being substantiated after the compensation is finalized by the government and the courts.
Another major factor for mortality is that at least five to six percent of those eligible for vaccination still hesitate to pay attention to it for various reasons. Now about 90 percent of those who die are either old or co-morbid. Two-thirds of the deaths currently being reported are from this non-vaccination section. “So the six percent without vaccination is currently causing almost 12 times more deaths,” Anish said.
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