Covid-19: Odisha sees 47 deaths even as 800 more pending audit

BHUBANESWAR: Even as around 800 deaths in the state are yet to be scrutinised to ascertain if those were owing to the novel coronavirus, there has been a comparative rise in the daily reports of Covid fatalities for the past few days owing to the speedy audit of pending cases, government authorities said.
Odisha on Saturday recorded 47 Covid deaths, the highest in a day, raising the official death toll to 3,257.It witnessed 4,852 new infections, the lowest in a day in more than 50 days. The state has been reporting at least 40 deaths a day for the last one week.
Additional chief secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said, “The daily reports of deaths have nothing to do with the current fatalities, which have come down significantly. Deaths that took place mostly in May and the first of week of June are being reported now after these were audited by expert committees. Otherwise deaths have also fallen sharply like the the new positive cases. The pendency was accumulated in May when the cases suddenly shot up.”
In May, the state saw 660 Covid deaths. These deaths are being meticulously reviewed. All the Covid deaths are being reported as and when the audit is being done by the committees in a transparent manner, Mohapatra added.
The deaths of each district are first reviewed by the district-level committees, led by an officer authorised by the collector and not below the rank of the additional district magistrate. Their reports are further reviewed by a state-level committee, whose members include the directors of medical education and training, health and public health.
Amid the piling up of deaths awaiting audit, the state health department had on May 27 asked the district administrations to audit these within 48 hours of occurrence by the district-level committees by holding daily meetings. Notably, Bihar recently added 3,951 Covid fatalities in a day earlier this week while announcing the audit reports of the unregistered deaths.
Considering the deaths already reported, Odisha’s overall case fatality rate (CFR) is 0.36% against an-all India average of 1.17%. In the second wave, Odisha’s CFR is 0.16%, which is the lowest among the 21 larger states.
The state’s new infections went below 5,000 for the first time after April 21 when it had reported 4,851 cases. The state’s daily positivity rate on Saturday was 7.22%. Odisha’s active caseload (62,515) is the sixth highest after Karnataka (2.03 lakh), Tamil Nadu (1.74 lakh), Maharashtra (1.61 lakh), Kerala 1.34 lakh) and Andhra Pradesh (96000+).