Vijayawada: It’s 8 pm Monday (17 May) and the Hindu crematorium opposite the ESI Government Hospital in Vijayawada still has five bodies burning.
According to the Andhra Pradesh government data, there were eight Covid-19 deaths in Krishna district, under which Vijayawada falls, as of 9 am on 17 May. But in this crematorium alone, final rites were performed for 22 patients.
The mismatch in figures is all the more startling as this is the state’s political hub. Just 15 minutes away from Vijayawada is Tadepally, located on the banks of Krishna River in Guntur district, which hosts Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s residence-cum-central party office. And about 35 minutes from the city is the state secretariat, which has the chief minister’s office.
“We’re ideally not supposed to cremate bodies post-sunset, according to the Hindu tradition, but what do we do? We had to cremate 40 bodies today (17 May), of whom 22 were Covid positive. All of them may have died on 16th only,” crematorium co-incharge Karthik told ThePrint.
ThePrint spent the entire day of 17 May at two large crematoriums and three Muslim burial grounds in Vijaywada and counted at least 36 Covid patients being laid to rest. In contrast, government data showed only single digit Covid deaths in the entire Krishna district in the week leading up to 16 May.
And if one considers that Vijayawada has at least 55 other crematories and burial grounds, the scale of the discrepancy is all the more stark.
Asked about the disparity, the Krishna District Collector A. Md Imtiaz told ThePrint that only deaths of those registered as Covid-19 patients in government hospitals are taken into consideration. He added that deaths in private hospitals too are included in the daily bulletin, if the patients test Covid-19 positive before they die.
“Sometimes, data of two days is put together because the numbers come in a little late,” the collector told ThePrint. “In a few instances, if the death happens beyond 8 pm or so, it is included in the next day’s bulletin. But there is nothing of a mismatch.”
Andhra Pradesh Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhasker told ThePrint that even normal patients are being wrapped up like how Covid patients are and that is leading to confusion at crematoriums.
“Our state government has always been transparent with the data,” he said. “We have no reasons to hide. Only by knowing the death toll, will we know the level of infection.”
Numbers that don’t add up
The numbers, however, just don’t add up.
Take 17 and 18 May for instance.
The state bulletin, which presents data over a 24-hour interval between 9 am of one day to 9 am of the next, reported only eight deaths on 17 May.
That would include deaths counted from 9 am on the 16th to 9 am on the 17th.
For 18 May, the bulletin listed 10 Covid-19 deaths. This would be for the period between 9 am on 17 May to 9 am on 18 May.
Put together, there were 18 Covid-19 deaths in Krishna district in two days — less than 22 bodies burnt at just one crematorium in a single day.
Just 8 km from the Hindu crematorium is one of the city’s largest funeral homes — Swargapuri — which is an electric and gas-based crematorium and is maintained by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.
The staff at Swargapuri told ThePrint that they cremated eight Covid-19 bodies on 17 May and eight more by noon on 18 May.
According to Rambabu, officer in-charge of Swargapuri crematorium, about 22 Covid bodies on an average were cremated in the week between 10 May and 16 May.
He also said that at least 30 per cent of them were residents of Vijayawada town and the rest from nearby villages in Krishna and Guntur districts.
Cases from villages on the Guntur-Krishna border also come to Vijayawada crematoriums, he said.
The state bulletin, however, reported not more than 10 deaths for Guntur district in the three days ending 17 May.
According to Rambabu, the deaths had peaked in the first week of May, when the Swargapuri crematorium saw an average of around 35 Covid body cremations a day.
The state bulletin, however, reported single digit deaths in the entire Krishna district for the entire week of May 10th to May 16th and also for the first week of May.
For instance, the state bulletin showed that the entire Krishna district reported only four deaths on 5 May. Whereas just one Muslim burial ground in Vijaywada, Jannatul Baqi, had seven Covid-19 body burials on 6 May — all of them of people who had died the previous day, according to records at the burial ground accessed by ThePrint.
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Similar story across city
Former corporator Muhammad Fathullah, who also runs an independent service organisation Khidmath Group, has been proactively helping his community members in burials especially in the second wave.
He told ThePrint that they laid six Covid bodies to rest on 17 May alone. When ThePrint met him at the Jannatul Baqi Muslim burial ground at 10.30 am on 17 May, he had helped in the last rites of three Covid bodies in a span of 30 minutes.
“Imagine that only Vijayawada city in the district and only Muslim community is seeing an average of 7 to 11 Covid deaths in the past weeks. Same time if you look at state bulletins, the government says the entire district has had only four deaths or say maximum eight,” Fataullah said.
“If one community is seeing six to 10 deaths, then how many would it be if we include all the communities in the city and how many would it be if we include the entire district? According to my sources, the death count in the government hospitals is easily 70 a day.”
‘Death rate coming down after lockdown’
Most of the crematorium and burial grounds’ heads had only one positive thing to say — that the death rate in the last one week has been lesser than compared to the week before.
They believe the state government enforcing a partial lockdown on 5 May has helped in controlling the cases and in turn deaths. Andhra Pradesh is under partial lockdown until 31 May.
The Krishna district collector had in fact sent an internal note to the chief minister on how the lockdown helped cut down the positivity rate by 1 per cent in the district while the urban conglomeration of Vijayawada witnessed a steep decline of 26 per cent cases.
A source in the health department, however, admitted that the deaths were high.
“Unofficially the death count could be 50 a day easily; people from surrounding villages also come here and get treated,” the source said. “Government data will include only those from government hospitals in the city and that too of those who have an RT PCR positive certificate.”
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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