The Opposition has been consistently attacking the LDF government's claim of low COVID-19 case fatality rate in Kerala.
In the Assembly on Tuesday, Opposition Leader V D Satheesan revealed huge mismatch in the government's own death figures. While the chief minister said there were 16,170 deaths, Satheesan said he had received an RTI reply from the Information Kerala Mission showing the death figures as 23,486.
The IKM figures given were for the period till July 13, while the official figure was the one declared by the chief minister on July 26. Even this, Satheesan said, showed a difference of 7316.
"All of us know the death figure quoted by the government is wrong. Now, an agency under the government has said it was more than what the chief minister had claimed. The actual figures could be even higher, " Satheesan said in the Assembly.
He said that such a purposeful suppression of death figures would only help in denying poor families financial and other benefits they deserve.
Later, he released the RTI reply to the press at the Media Room in the Assembly. "In such a situation shouldn't we not analyse why the TPR and death rates are going up. Shouldn't the government check whether there is something unscientific about the existing strategy, " Satheesan said.
"The very purpose of the controls is to reduce crowds and thereby prevent the spread of the disease. But the current strategy of opening shops and other institutions only on limited days is leading to larger crowds, defeating the very purpose of such a control strategy, " he said.
Satheesan said that the Opposition had been consistently bringing the attention of the government to the problematic count of COVID deaths. "However, right from the start the government had adopted a dismissive attitude, " Satheesan said.
