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The reasons for underreporting of deaths are many, the primary of which included many villagers not reporting their symptoms to the health department teams fearing the stigma attached. Many such villagers later died at their homes and were never classified as Covid deaths.
Sources said that many cremation grounds, especially those in the rural areas of the state, had also witnessed an increase in the number of bodies that relatives claimed were not of Covid-19 patients.
“The state government should look into data pertaining to an increase in non-Covid deaths also. It is true that the state government didn’t hide the actual number of Covid-19 deaths. However, there were also a considerable number of unofficial deaths which were never reported to the health department and were classified as non-Covid. These deaths should be probed if we are to get the exact toll,” said an official of the state health department.
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