Is Kerala behind the rise in COVID-19 cases? Explaining how ‘skewed data’ led to a jump in infections

A medical worker takes a swab sample from a woman for a RT-PCR test for the COVID-19. AFP

India is witnessing a rise in COVID-19 cases and fatalities, sparking concern that a fourth wave is around the corner.

The Centre’s daily bulletin showed that the tally of daily COVID-19 cases had risen by 1,247 infections. The data revealed that there was a 43 per cent dip from Monday’s numbers. On Monday, India had logged 2,183 new cases and 214 deaths.

The spike in cases has also led to the Centre pulling up Kerala over its ‘erratic updation’ of the COVID-19 data, adding that the lack of data from Kerala is impacting national statistics.

What’s the problem? Why is Kerala being pulled up by the health ministry? Here’s all we know about the situation.

No daily data

Earlier last week, Kerala’s Health Department announced that it has stopped publishing the daily COVID-19 numbers after doing so for over two years from 30 January 2020.

The Health Department said that while daily figures would be provided to the media, it had stopped updating the COVID daily bulletin on its website from 5 April.

The Health Department’s decision had left doctors divided. “I think it is absolutely the right time to stop giving the daily updates to the public. We have to live with this. We have to get back to normal economic activities. But there must be close monitoring of the ICU admissions and COVID deaths by the health department,” Dr N Sulphi, state president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) told News18.

Dr Padmanabha Shenoy, immunologist and rheumatologist, however, had a differing view. He told News18 that the state should give if not weekly, then at least monthly data to the public.

“COVID is not yet over. We can see the situation in the UK and how cases are increasing. There should be strong internal monitoring by the health department and they should release the data to the public weekly or monthly. This was one of our strong pillars while dealing with COVID. Cautious optimism is best,” he was quoted as saying.

What’s gone wrong?

According to reports, Kerala officially stopped sharing the daily COVID data from 11 April to the Centre.

Kerala had not shared daily COVID-19 numbers with the Centre from 13-17 April, for four days. Then, on Monday, it restarted sharing figures.

However, the data on Monday provided numbers for the past four days, causing a sudden spike in the tally of national COVID-19 infections.

For instance, on 13 April, Kerala sent its daily figures of 298 to the Centre. It then shared its data on 18 April with a tally of 940 cases. This caused a 90 per cent jump for the national daily cases.

Similarly, there was an anomaly with the deaths too. On Monday, India reported a total of 214 deaths owing to the virus. Of this, 213 were reported from Kerala. However, a closer look at the data revealed that one death was reported on 17 April while 62 were designated as COVID-19 fatalities after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court, and remaining 150 deaths were reported from 13 to 16 April 13.

What has the Centre said?

Lav Agarwal, the joint secretary in the health ministry, sent a letter to Kerala’s principal secretary of health Rajan N Khobragade on Monday, asking that daily COVID-19 data be shared.

In the letter, Agarwal writes, “It has been observed that Kerala has reported its state-level COVID-19 data after a gap of five days (since 13 April). This has impacted and skewed the status of India’s key monitoring indicators like cases, deaths and positivity. India has reported a 90 per cent increase in new cases and 165 per cent increase in positivity in a single day.”

“Daily and diligent reporting of data is critical to arrive at a meaningful understanding of pandemic in districts, state and national level and ensure that any anomalies, surge or emerging trends can be captured in a timely manner. This is especially relevant as it is a highly infectious disease and also has an associated risk of emergence of new variants,” the letter further read.

“You are requested to ensure that daily updation of required details is undertaken by the state to Union Ministry of Health,” he concluded in his letter.

With inputs from agencies

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