Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday praised the Uttar Pradesh government for successfully handling the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The way in which Uttar Pradesh has controlled the second Covid wave and stopped its spread is unprecedented,” Modi claimed at an event in Varanasi, PTI reported. “The mutated and dangerous form of the coronavirus had attacked with all its might. But entire UP, including Kashi [Varanasi], faced the problem with all its full ability.”
Last month, data from the Civil Registration System showed that 24 districts in the state recorded 1,97,000 more deaths between July 2020 and March 2021 than in the corresponding period the previous year. The mortality rate was 110% higher than the same period the previous year. The number of deaths was 43 times higher than the official Covid-19 toll in these nine months.
This does not even factor in the peak of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit India in April and…