'No one can revise Delhi's death nos, all are reported'

New Delhi: As several states across the country start revising their Covid death toll, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Sunday said no one can tinker with the number of deaths in Delhi, including those occurring due to Coronavirus.

His comments came in the backdrop of some states, such as Bihar, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra, reporting "backlog deaths" — fatalities from earlier months added to the toll in June.

All deaths that occur in Delhi are entered in the "death register". Fatalities due to COVID-19 figure in the health bulletin issued daily by the government, he said.

"No one can increase or decrease the number of deaths in Delhi. So far, around 24,900 people have died due to coronavirus in the city," he told reporters in response to a question.

Significantly, the Delhi government's health bulletin data on Covid-19 deaths has already thrown up several discrepancies, including one where the cumulative number of deaths are surprisingly not increasing in tandem with the number of daily deaths.

In fact, the bulletin itself carries a text at the bottom every day, which says, "All figures are tentative, subject to change on receipt of additional information," suggesting that figures are updated once reconciled with the concerned authorities.

Jain also said Delhi can escape the third wave of viral infection if people wear masks and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital has dropped to 135, but it doesn't mean that the pandemic has ended. The very is very much there, he added.

On Sunday, Delhi reported seven deaths due to the viral infection, the lowest since April 1, and 124 fresh cases (lowest since February 16) with a positivity rate of 0.17 per cent.

This was the second day in a row that the number of deaths has remained below 10. These new fatalities have pushed the death toll in the city to 24,914.

The infection rate which had reached 36 per cent in the last week of April, has come down to below 0.20 per cent now.