In the Schrodinger’s thought experiment, a cat is placed inside a box with some poison and a radio-active material with a Geiger counter wired to a flask of poison. The box is so rigged that that the half-life of the radio-active material is one hour. So, within an hour, the cat is either dead or alive or half-dead or half-alive, as is the norm in Quantum Mechanics.
There’s no way to determine whether the cat is alive or dead unless one opens the box, and that appears to be West Bengal’s strategy to tackle COVId-19. If you don’t open the box, you don’t know how bad things are.
Even as India’s total cases stood at 614 in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally to 5709 at 8 AM, with big states like Maharashtra reporting 1364 cases and 97 deaths, Bengal has reported only 109 cases! In Tamil Nadu, the total is 834, in Delhi 720.Kerala has 357, Telangana has 442, and UP 410. Rajasthan has 463, Andhra 348 and MP 259.
Bengal’s case appears to be a true outlier, suggesting it had either done exceptionally well or just swept it under the carpet.
However, Bengal has only tested 1889 people till April 9, leading to many questioning the state’s COVID-19 approach.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta wrote: “West Bengal’s maverick approach to the coronavirus threat is beginning to worry the rest of India. Match-fixing and denial is no way to fight coronavirus in W Bengal. To take an informed decision on strategy after the present 21-day lockdown, people must know what is the real picture. Wishing away a problem is downright dangerous. The stakes are too high for childish games.”
The Banerjee government had said on Monday that it would consult an expert committee of doctors before linking any fatality to COVID-19. She said: “We have formed a committee of five doctors who will decide the actual cause of death. They are the experts, I am not. We do not want to create panic among people. Please trust the doctors.”
This essentially meant that unlike other government, WB is attributing deaths to pre-existing conditions like heart disease or diabetes. While these conditions do increase the co-morbidity, other states are attributing deaths to COVID-19.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, docs signing death certificates are required to attach 24 test reports which will then be scrutinised by a committee of five doctors, a level of bureaucratic red-tape that would gladden Sir Humphrey Appleby’s heart.
This means that Bengal, with a projected population 10 crore as of 2020, has fewer far million cases than most big states including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The problem still remains that just because one doesn't open the box doesn't mean that the cat's fate isn't determined.
