TN CM trashes oppn claim of 'underreporting' of COVID deaths

Madurai, Aug 6 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K
Palaniswami on Thursday dismissed as baseless opposition
claims of under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in the state,
asserting that the government was transparent on disseminating
all data, including thoserelated to fatalities.
The government does not stand to gain anything by
concealing information related to the illness, including
deaths, he said.
"On what basis are they making the allegation? data on death
and those related to people being treated are being released
transparently," he told reporters here when asked about the
DMK's charge that actual deaths were not reported.
"There is no need to hide. What is the gain for the
government?" he asked adding such accusations were "not true,
unfounded and baseless."
DMK chief and Leader of Opposition in Assembly M K Stalin
had alleged that the governmentsuppressed information on
COVID-19 deaths.
Recently, 444 deaths were added to Chennai's list of virus
deaths after a death reconciliation committee recommended it
following scrutiny.
Till date 4,571 people have died, including110 reported
today.
Giving an illustration on how delayed reporting happened,
Palaniswami said "a few people die after going home following
treatment and such cases do not get accounted for in time."
Such a trend was not seen in Tamil Nadu alone but also in
states like Maharashtra and the national capital region of
Delhi, he said.
"Tamil Nadu is the state to have done maximum testing. When
we do more testing, we prevent the chances of the spread of
the virus by treating the infected...
"They (opposition) don't have a heart to appreciate (the
efforts of the government), the opposition will talk only like
that, have they ever spoken the truth?" he asked, adding
the disease spread was seeing a dip.
"During these challenging times, it has become a regular
feature (for opposition) to level charges," he said.
To a question on the high number of positive cases in
Tamil Nadu, where the tally stood at 2,79,144, he said it only
reflected aggressive testing while other states did not detect
cases rapidly.
The cases might appear to be on the higher side now, but
Tamil Nadu would not be affected with more cases in future in
view of a slew of measures, including testing, he said.
Also, the positivity rate in the state was low while in
states like Andhra Pradesh it was high, he said.
"If 25,000 people are tested about 10,000 turn positive in
Andhra Pradesh, if we test about 60,000 how many people test
positive for coronavirus?" he asked.
In recent days, less than 6,000 samples turn positive out
of about 60,000 (average) specimens in Tamil Nadu.
On the "absence of details on tests in districts," he
said, district wise data has been released thrice adding data
collation was a time consuming exercise.
"Test results are now being released in about 24 hours.
This is an improvement," he added.
The chief minister hit out at the opposition saying
"posing questions" alone was their task while only those who
worked in the government had responsibility and understood the
difficulties involved.
To a question on e-passes for inter-district travel, he
said issuance of the passes has been simplified and an
additional team deployed for the task.
"The restriction mandating e-pass is only to see that
people do not travel unnecessarily," he added.
Stalin has urged the government to do away with the e-pass
system, saying it was causing difficulties to people. PTI VGN
VS VS

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)