TMC govt says it has retrieved ‘missing’ Covid-19 data, admits to gaps
A major controversy erupted after state health secretary Vivek Kumar’s letter to union health secretary Preeti Sudan put the total number of persons who tested positive for Covid-19 in the state at 931 as of April 30, whereas the data shared with journalists gave the number 816.
On a day the inter-ministerial central team sent a letter to the state government questioning mismatch in its data related to Covid-19, the Mamata Banerjee-administration claimed to have found all missing data, even while admitting that there were gaps in data that was being released every day.
“There was an issue of missing data which is why there were some gaps. All missing data have been retrieved. Now we are in a position to share all this data every day,” Rajiva Sinha, chief secretary of West Bengal said on Monday.
A major controversy erupted after state health secretary Vivek Kumar’s letter to union health secretary Preeti Sudan put the total number of persons who tested positive for Covid-19 in the state at 931 as of April 30, whereas the data shared with journalists gave the number 816.
However, the data shared by the state on Monday supports neither figure. The government said that the total number of patients testing positive stood at 1,259 on Monday, with 229 new cases between May 1 and May 4, which put the April 30 number at 1,030.
“There were gaps in data which was triggering confusion. We found that the data reporting structure was highly complicated and some data was not being registered at all. It was not deliberate. We have improved. We searched all data over the weekend and compiled everything so that there is no missing data,” Sinha added.
As a result, while the state government’s data and so long shown fewer number of cases than in the data shared by the union health ministry, the Monday number was well above what was shared by union health ministry.
The state government on Monday said of the total 1,259 total cases, 908 were active cases, 218 persons have recovered and been discharged from hospitals, 61 persons died of Covid-19 and another 72 died of co-morbidity.
“Bengal is turning out to be India’s Covid-19 hub. The state government’s mismanagement led to this situation. Without IMCT’s interventions, we would have never known the real picture regarding the number of deaths and persons infected,” BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh alleged on Monday.
The IMCT for south Bengal, before leaving the state for Delhi, sent a letter to the chief secretary on Monday accusing the state of fudging Covid-19 related data and suppressing facts. The team, which was in Bengal since April 20, will submit its report to the ministry of home affairs soon.
The number of containment zones in the state has shot up from 444 on April 30 to 516 on May 4. Kolkata, with 318 such areas, has the highest number of containment zones.
Meanwhile the bulletin published by the state on Monday showed that only four districts have been tagged as Red Zones in Bengal. On April 30, the union health ministry released a list which said that Bengal has 10 Red Zones.
The state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) targeted the BJP for politicising an administrative issue. On social media, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and TMC youth wing chief Abhishek Banerjee wrote, “In their desperation to score cheap political points, those who are misrepresenting facts and maligning Bengal even daring to call Bengal - ‘Wuhan of India’ should look at facts: % +ve per million: 14, rank 16th, Total Cases: 1259, rank 9th, Active cases: 908, rank 10th.” The ranks refer to the state’s standing nationally.
