The Tamil Nadu government has been transparent in reporting COVID-19 deaths and no one can hide the information, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said on Thursday, rejecting claims of under-reporting of fatalities.
He also asserted there was no community transmission of coronavirus in the state, which has reported 1,500 plus fresh cases for four successive days till Wednesday with the tally crossing the 36,000 mark.
"Where is the difference in deaths? ... There is no ground to conceal deaths and nobody can hide deaths," the chief minister shot back when reporters asked him about under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths.
A day after the government set up a reconciliation committee to look into alleged mismatch of COVID-19 deaths, Palaniswami said it was issuing a COVID-19 bulletin on a daily basis furnishing data on aspects including testing, recoveries, active cases and deaths.
The data on fatalities reflected deaths from both government and private hospitals, he said during the media interaction after inaugurating infrastructure projects, including a bridge named after late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
Also, the chief minister wondered how it was even possible to under-count deaths and project it on the lower side.
"How it (deaths) could be shown less ? If somebody dies of COVID-19, the media shows (visuals) and people come to know. This cannot be hidden. For the government, it serves no good (purpose) by hiding deaths," he said.
Palaniswami reiterated that there was no community transmission of the deadly virus in Tamil Nadu and maintained that the spread was through contacts.
Population density, congested neighbourhoods were among the reasons for the high number of cases in Chennai, he said.
The capital city remains the hotspot of the virus spread with 25,937 cases out of the state's tally of 36,841 as of Wednesday.
Following claims of discrepancies between the register of COVID-19 deaths of Greater Chennai Corporation and the data of state government's health authorities, the government set up the 'reconciliation committee' on Wednesday.
Comprising doctors from the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services and Directorate of Medical Education and the city corporation, the panel would look into the question of alleged discrepancies in deaths.
The reconciliation initiative was taken up by the government also in the wake of a complaint by an NGO to authorities claiming that three COVID-19 deaths were not recorded.
