According to the latest data released by the government, the largest number of deaths occurred due to Covid-19, since April 2020, took place in two months. It has also highlighted the impact of these deadly two months across the states.
The Right to Information application was submitted by a reporter, in response, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) shared the data which showed that in 14 months, around 60% of total Covid deaths in Delhi, Punjab and Karnataka happened in April and May and 41% of Covid deaths came from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi in April and May, these three states have highly contributed in deaths in the two-month period.
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The data by NCDC said that 1,66,623 people succumbed to Covid in April-May 2021 out of which 1,20,770 people died in May and 45,882 people died in April, and these two months have witnessed the highest number of Covid-related deaths since April 2020.
While informing about the total deaths it said that 3,29,065 Covid deaths have occurred between April 2020 and May 2021.
April-May is followed by September-October, which is considered as the peak of the first Covid wave. Reportedly, the month of September has recorded 33,035 Covid related deaths.
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The experts said that the indications related to the second wave of Covid-19 started emerging in March 2021 as from the same month Covid deaths were increased in the four states, which are – Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana and from March onwards the country also witnessed the spike in fresh cases every day.
Experts also highlighted the political campaigns, post assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and Haridwar Maha Kumbh. The latest data showed that on May 2, the day at which post assembly election result was declared, the Covid deaths toll was up by five times. In West Bengal, it went up to 4,162 to 921, in Assam from 177 to 2019, in Kerala from 653 to 3383 and in Tamil Nadu from 1233 to 9821.
Dr Shaheed Jamil, former head of the Central government’s advisory group on Covid genome sequencing said, “One reason for higher cases during this period could be more testing in May. The deaths indicate that state governments ignored the third wave signs and reacted late.”
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The NCDC report showed the impact of the second wave on the different states and indicated the true numbers of deaths that happened due to Covid-19, which might not be displayed by highly populated states including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
NCDC is the health ministry’s nodal agency for maintaining all the Covid-19 related records, it works under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). Non-Covid deaths are not recorded by IDSP, informed the joint director of NCDC, Dr Vinay Kumar Garg.