NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, JUNE 15
Principal Opposition Leader and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) President M.K. Stalin on Monday slammed the Tamil Nadu government and said that the “misreporting of COVID-19 deaths can no longer be called a mere error”.
“Such attempts to suppress information and avoid transparency by officials can no longer be termed as a mere error,” said Stalin.
Speaking to reporters he also said, “On June 9, numbers reported by the Greater Chennai Corporation show that 460 people died due to COVID-19 but Tamil Nadu State Health Department reported only 224 deaths on the same day.”
Refuting the Health Secretary’s claim that the error was due to a ‘procedural lapse’, he asked how officials could be unfamiliar with reporting mechanisms even after 85 days of the lockdown.
“Data mismanagement of this scale cannot be possible unless the government at the highest level is complicit,” Stalin said.
The DMK chief said that the positivity rate in Tamil Nadu now being over 10 per cent, “the number of people being tested is still inadequate, especially as Chennai is seeing the highest growth rate of infection among all other cities in India.”
He also questioned the government about the reports of the Death Audit Committee formed on April 20, that are still not in the public domain.
