Centre tells Kerala govt to update COVID-19 numbers daily as cases rise

Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal on wrote a letter to Kerala Principal Secretary Rajan Khobragade regarding intensive monitoring at the state and district level, taking suitable steps to monitor COVID-19 and updating the data timely.

In his letter, Lav Agarwal highlighted that Kerala government had reported its state level COVID-19 data after a gap of 5 days since April 13. Further he also said that daily and diligent reporting of data is critical to arrive at a meaningful understanding of pandemic in the districts, state and national level and ensure that any anomalies, surge or emerging trends can be captured in a timely manner.

Quick and continuous update of data will assist in India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and will help not only in tracking and monitoring but will also help in defining the strategies and plans at the Centre, State and District level, Agrawal wrote in letter further.

The health Ministry requested Kerala govt to ensure daily updation of required details and is undertaken by the state to Union Ministry of Health.

The letter comes in the backdrop after nearly a week ago, the announced that they have stopped publishing the daily COVID case officially. The number of bulletins issued by the State exceeds even the bulletins issued by the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a brief announcement made through the office of the Health Minister, it was communicated to the media on Monday that henceforth, daily COVID updates will not be issued.

The announcement says daily updates had become an insignificant activity now that the COVID disease transmission in the State ceased to pose a threat to the community at large.

The daily COVID bulletins is one of the longest standing, consistent activities taken up by the Health department in its history. The bulletins began to be issued even before the first COVID case landed on the State’s shore, on January 26, 2020, though these were mostly general information on disease surveillance.

Meanwhile, India logged 2,183 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,30,44,280, while the active cases declined to 11,542, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

The death toll climbed to 5,21,965 with 214 fresh fatalities, including 213 from Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.