New Delhi: India reported a Covid death toll of 624 in the last 24 hours after Kerala and Goa, along with the Union territory of Chandigarh, updated data on fatalities.
While Kerala added 225 deaths to the total toll Thursday, Chandigarh added 256 Covid fatalities and Goa added 94 deaths.
Together with the deaths recorded from other states, the total number of deaths went up to 624.
India’s 7-day average of daily deaths has mostly remained below 400 over the last month.
Field investigation, scrutiny
Chandigarh added 256 Covid fatalities to its death toll, stating that the data had been updated after matching the figures from the cremation grounds.
These include deaths since March 2020, keeping in view the broadened definition of Covid-19 deaths according to the new guidelines. The additional figure was added after due field investigation and scrutiny of records, the UT’s health department stated in its bulletin. This takes Chandigarh’s total death toll to 1,076.
In Kerala, 52 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Additionally, 173 deaths were declared as Covid deaths through a provision that allows kin of the deceased to apply for Covid-19 death certificates.
This takes the state’s total mortality from the pandemic to 42,239.
For Goa, 94 additional deaths from August 2020 to June 2021 were added to the cumulative deaths. The state’s total death toll now stands at 3,482.
Currently, India has 94,943 active Covid cases. As many as 4,74,735 people have lost their lives to Covid since the beginning of the pandemic.
(Edited by Saikat Niyogi)
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