As virus cases rise, govt restricts data sharing
New Delhi: At the time when India is witnessing a rise in the COVID-19 cases at the rate of about 5.2 per cent daily, the Union Health Ministry has started doing away with the data transparency.
After facing strong criticism over poor reporting of COVID-19 cases, the Health Ministry had first put a stop on giving details about cases at the district level. As per the Health Ministry officials, district-wise data was removed from the official website of the ministry on May 2.
Even though the Health Ministry was reluctant in updating the district-wise data, it was a source to understand the trend. According to officials, the district-wise data might have been removed to avoid any question over the data mismatch as the state's delay in sending the updated reports.
"The district-wise data was removed after a controversy was erupted over sending Central team to those districts that had lesser COVID-19 cases. Also, the Health Ministry had faced an embarrassment for putting districts with lesser cases under Red zone category," said health professions, who don't want to be
named.
The health experts have also opined that the Health Ministry show the least interest in discussing COVID-19 related issues during its daily briefing, which was resumed on Wednesday after a long break of over a week as the last such briefing was held on May 8.
"During the daily press briefings, the ministry officials used to read out those guidelines which were already in the public domain. What's the use of reading out those papers which have already been uploaded at the Health Ministry's website much in advance," the experts said.
When the total COVID-19 cases have crossed one-lakh mark, there should be more transparency in reporting of Coronavirus cases and hence there should be a regular press meet in the presence of scientists, but it wouldn't happen now as Health Ministry is mulling to restrict daily briefings. It would now be held only when it's required and not on a day-to-day basis.
As per the officials, the Notably, the Health Ministry has been holding a daily press briefing from March till May 8 and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) representatives, who used to clear the doubts in a simpler way during the daily press meets, stopped attending the sessions since April
24.
With 5,611 new cases in the last 24 hours, India on Wednesday reported 1,06,750 confirmed cases of Coronavirus. Of the total, 42,298 patients have been cured at the rate of 39.6 per cent, while till now 3,303 have died.
