Districts due to staffing constraints or technical issues can’t update death data within 48 hours
During this reconciliation process data from both ICMR portal and COVID 19 portal is cross checked with the state data and all discrepancies are removed
For bulk uploading states uses application programme interface technology so that data uploading can be facilitated
At every midnight, death list is downloaded from the analytics portal of the state and district-level duplicate entries are removed
The Maharashtra Government has reiterated that there is no fudging of COVID-19 data but said that it has been engaged in data reconciliation regularly. The data reconciliation exercise conducted from May 26 to June 12 has seen deaths being reported with a delay from Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, and Yavatmal. It has resulted in the state's overall pandemic-related deaths increasing by 8,840 to 1.08 lakh now. On June 12, the state had reported 360 deaths while the progressive deaths after data reconciliation have surged to 1,08,333.
The Centre had written to the Maharashtra and Bihar government on their reconciliation of death data. ‘’Although we have urged districts to update death data within 48 hours, this is not always possible due to staffing constraints or technical issues,” said Dr Pradeep Awate, who is state surveillance officer. He said daily review of all the districts and municipal corporations is taken to rectify data discrepancy.
Overall, the highest single-day highest reconciled data was on Friday at 2,213, according to the statement.
Dr Awate told The Free Press Journal, ‘’ Apart from this daily exercise, the state also reconciles all the figures every fortnight. During this reconciliation process data from both ICMR portal and COVID 19 portal is cross checked with the state data. All the discrepancies are removed. As laboratories and hospitals update their old data this reconciliation process if required to include this updated data.’’
He further said that as hospitals, especially private hospitals, many times fail to update their data through facility apps, the district has to compile data and upload it on the portal. ‘’Obviously it requires time and data uploading gets delayed,’’ he noted.
State downloads a line list of positive cases and deaths from ICMR and COVID 19 portals at 12 midnight every day, and gets it cross checked by the concerned districts. It also checks the entire line list for any duplicate entries and after doing this exercise and after confirmation of the authenticity of the data from all the districts, the state government prepares a final state report and shares it with the press,’’ said the public health department in a statement.
‘’Many times, due to load of the samples, laboratories are also unable to upload all the data regularly on the portal. If the laboratory has not updated data on the portal, naturally that particular positive patient reporting gets delayed,’’ said Dr Awate.
According to the state public health department, the IT Cell also helps districts in resolving technical issues to sort out issues of data discrepancies. For bulk uploading states use application programme interface technology so that data uploading can be facilitated.
