NEW DELHI: The inaccurate reporting of Covid deaths is the main reason for the virus surge in Kerala, said the central government. If only the death rates and daily test positivity rates are accurately reported that we can categorise the infected areas and block the spread of the disease, said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the ministry of health, in a press conference.

24,730 deaths were added to the previous list from October till February 2. However, on February 2, only 1000 deaths were reported as previous deaths. The centre had repeatedly directed the state to stop this trend of inaccurate reporting.

Currently, eight states including Kerala have more than 50,000 active cases. The other states are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. However, the case numbers are declining in a number of states. The number of districts with test positivity rate (TPR) higher than 10 percent has gone down to 297 from 406, within two weeks. It is concerning to see that Covid cases in Kerala are rising amidst a decrease in the case numbers of the country, said the centre. Kerala is the only state in which the cases are increasing daily. The state accounts for 24.68 percent of the total cases reported in the country.

In the meantime, 96 and 76 percent of the country’s population have taken the first and second dose of vaccines, respectively. 1.23 crore people have taken booster doses as well. Among the youth, 4.78 crore have taken first dose and 21.63 lakh have taken the second dose.