Government Hiding Real Covid-19 Figures, Deaths: Congress

Former minister and ex-Leader Of Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir alleged that the Telangana government was hiding the real numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the state.

Shabbir Ali said that the modified media bulletin issued by the Director of Public Health on the status of Covid-19 cases on Sunday as of July 25 clearly exposed the "trickery" of the state government with the figures.

He alleged that there was a huge mismatch in the number of deaths occurring in hospitals across the state and the deaths being reported in the media bulletin.

He said that the death figures in the media bulletin were just 10% of the actual numbers of bodies being cremated or buried across the state, and that that meant that many deaths due to Covid-19 were not being registered officially to show a low mortality rate.

"If those deaths had occurred due to reasons other than the coronavirus, then why were the last rites being performed silently as per Covid-19 guidelines?" he asked.

Under-reporting of deaths due to the virus would obviously show a low mortality rate and a high recovery rate, he said.

He added that various Central agencies which were tracking the Covid-19 situation had repeatedly accused the Telangana government of under-reporting the number of cases.

He also said that Telangana was not conducting tests as per the guidelines set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). While the WHO had recommended at least 140 tests per million per day, the overall testing rate in Telangana so far was just 113 per million of population.

He said that things were much worse that even that till the second week of June, and that it was only after the Congress had raised the issue that the testing rate had been increased.

He also said that the state government was misleading the people by claiming the testing rate to be 391 tests per million, as the figure represented only the testing done on Saturday and not the overall number of tests conducted so far.

"Why is the state government not presenting the real situation before the people? Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has been trying to downplay the threat due to the coronavirus since day 1. It was due to his negligent and careless attitude that hundreds of innocent people lost their lives and lakhs of families are still suffering. The government should have maintained total transparency on the Covid-19 cases and deaths. This would have helped the people take proper precautions and we could have saved many lives. However, KCR always tried to present a rosy picture, and claimed victory without even fighting the battle," Shabbir Ali said.

He alleged that the TRS government in general loved to function from behind a veil. "It suppressed information on suicides by farmers. Then it stopped sharing Government Orders on the official website. The media has no entry to Pragathi Bhavan or KCR's farmhouse. The Chief Minister does not want people to see the images of the demolition of the Secretariat. He does not want any opposition leader to visit any Covid hospital or any other places that may bring criticism. He has mastered the art of tampering with the official figures to show an inflated growth rate. The state government also stopped sharing information on cases and deaths pertaining to dengue, malaria, viral fevers etc long back. KCR is more interested in managing his image than on saving the lives of the common people," he said.

The Congress leader demanded that the state government share the real figures of the Covid-19 cases and deaths with the common people so that the public could understand the gravity of the situation.