Amid dip in cases, India records highest one-day COVID deaths. Here’s why

India on Wednesday reported 6,148 COVID-19 deaths, the highest single-day toll ever since the pandemic began in 2020. The dramatic rise in the one-day fatalities is due to the addition of 3,951 previously uncounted deaths in Bihar.

Why were these deaths went unreported previously?

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Bihar has conducted a data cleaning audit recently as a result of which these unreported deaths numbers were disclosed. The deaths included in the Wednesday data were earlier being considered to have recovered, reported Indian Express. 

However, the exact time period of these deaths is yet not ascertained hence it is quite likely that some of these deaths were from last year’s data.

What is Bihar’s COVID-19 status?

Following the Wednesday deaths addition, Bihar is now India’s 12the largest contributor of COVID-19 related fatalities. The total tally of the state now stands at 9,429.

The addition of around 4000 deaths on Wednesday, however, has not impacted the overall COVID-19 fatality rate by much. The state saw a jump of nearly 0.1%, i.e, from 1.22% to 1.23%.

Meanwhile, Indian on Thursday recorded 94,052 overall new infections, with the total caseload and death toll now standing at 29,183,121 and 359,676 respectively.