Maharashtra revises COVID deaths by 3,509, India’s toll at 4,18,480 now

Maharashtra on Wednesday added 3,509 previously unaccounted deaths to the country’s COVID fatalities pushing India’s death toll to 4,18,480. The dramatic rise in otherwise dipping daily fatalities comes after the state conducted its14th COVID data reconciliation exercise between July 12 to July 14.

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Why were these deaths went unreported previously?

For the fourteenth time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Maharashtra, which has been one of the largest contributors of COVID cases and deaths, had conducted a data cleaning audit or COVID data reconciliation exercise recently as a result of which these unreported deaths numbers were disclosed.

“Due to updation of previous cases and deaths by the concerned districts, the positive case tally of the state has increased by 2,479 while there is an increase of 3,509 deaths in the state’s cumulative tally,” the Public Health Department said.

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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 India’s COVID-19 status now?

Following the Wednesday deaths, addition and 489 new deaths were reported from the rest of the country the other day, India’s COVID death tally rose to 3,998. Total deaths have crossed 4.18 lakh since the beginning of the pandemic.

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As many as 18,52,140 tests were conducted on Tuesday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 44,91,93,273, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.27%

The number of people who have recovered from the disease surged to 3,03,90,687 and the case fatality rate has increased to 1.34%, the data stated.

Subsequently, India reported 42,015 new COVID-19 cases and 3,998 deaths in the last 24 hours. India’s infection tally now stands at 3,12,16,337, with the death toll pushed to 4,18,480.