Congress Claims Covid Infections Understated

The Congress on Sunday demanded that the Telangana government issue a White Paper on the deaths in the state due to Covid-19, along with details of the compensation paid to the families of the victims.

"The TRS government has suppressed the figures of the deaths due to the coronavirus. As per official figures, as on 25th December 2021, a total of 6,80,553 people were infected with the virus, and 4,021 people lost their lives. But the real number of deaths is much higher than the official figure. The state government has started receiving applications to pay the compensation of Rs. 50,000 announced by the union government. However, it has not been making any attempts to cover all the families who lost their loved ones to Covid-19," Hyderabad City Congress Committee (HCCC) Minorities Department Chairman Sameer Waliullah said.

Quoting sources, the Congress leader said that so far nearly 7,000 families had applied for the compensation due to Covid deaths although the official death toll was 4,021. "Why would any family lie about the death of a loved one? The state government should trust all those families and consider their applications on a humanitarian basis. Most of them might not possess the documents asked for by the authorities to prove that their kin died due to Covid-19. Instead of rejecting those applications on their faces, the state government should accept them by taking into consideration the circumstances that prevailed at the time of the deaths," he said.

Waliullah also said that the authorities were taking into account only the deaths that occurred in hospitals. There were several cases wherein patients died on the way to hospitals or at the entrance of hospitals due to denial of admission. Many deaths that occurred at home or in remote villages were also not recorded.

Also, in many cases the hospital authorities did not mention Covid as the cause of death in the death certificates. Instead, they mentioned "pulmonary arrest" or "pulmonary cardiac arrest" as the cause of death. The state government should frame new guidelines to include all such deaths as Covid deaths so as to help the families of the victims, Waliullah said.

"Then, many patients who recovered from Covid are still facing some health complications. Most of them are unable to bear the expenses as they lost their entire savings to the treatment. Therefore, the state government should announce a relief package to help the families who lost their livelihoods due to both Covid and the lockdowns," he added.

Waliullah also demanded that the state government release a White Paper on the Covid situation by disclosing the details of the amount spent to handle the pandemic and to help the affected persons and their families.