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The ‘mystery’ of undeclared COVID deaths
The Hindu
Govt. has not given an explanation as to why several deaths are missing from the official list
As the Health Department prepares to release the backlog of “undeclared” COVID-19 deaths in the State, there is confusion galore as to why these deaths remained undeclared. The allegation that the State has been less than honest about declaring all COVID deaths or including all deaths of COVID-positive persons in its official list of deaths is something that was raised right from the initial days of the pandemic when the Health Department refused to include the name of a Mahe native in the list.![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250217064624.jpg)
When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.