Covid-19 second wave: Why India is breaking new records in daily deaths while the caseload curve is flattening

Maharashtra at 85,000 has witnessed the highest number of deaths so far.

On Monday, May 17, India witnessed a new high of 4,329 Covid-19 related deaths that surpassed the 4,205 deaths being reported a week earlier on May 11. It has been 12 days since India had the highest number of Covid cases crossing four lakh and has been on a decline ever since. However, as the death curve sees a two-week lag, the count is expected to begin to come down in few days. The count can also go up further as lots of states are reporting deaths that had happened a few days or weeks earlier.

In Maharashtra out of 1, 019 deaths were reported on Monday, 289 occurred between Saturday and Monday and 227 sometime in the last week, and another close to 500 fatalities more than a week ago, reported IE. But is yet to be included in the state tally of Covid related deaths. There also deaths that were later assessed to have been caused by other conditions.

In other states also there is an administrative lag in reporting deaths that at times extends to few weeks. In Karnataka close to 500 deaths reported in May actually occurred in April and even March. The stars with the highest number of Covid cases Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have been reporting 300 deaths every day on an average Twelve states have been reporting around 100 deaths daily while a small state like Uttarakhand reported 223 deaths in a day.

So far 66,866 people die due to Covid related complications this month, In April when the spread of infection was at its highest coupled with a shortage of hospital bed, medical oxygen, a relatively lesser number of deaths, 49, 000 were recorded.

Maharashtra at 85, 000 had witnessed the highest number of deaths so far but its neighbor Goa, a much smaller state recorded maximum death compared to its population. Goa has seen 1, 475 deaths per million population, more than Delhi that has 1, 310 deaths in the same amount of population accounted. Only these two states had more than 1, 000 death in a million people.