Mumbai: Maharashtra State Surveillance Officer Dr Pradeep Awate on Friday said that it is nothing short of a joke that the state which has reported every fifth case of the country and almost every third death that has happened in India is being targeted for hiding the COVID 19 data.
‘’State like UP which is near about double the size of Maharashtra has reported 21,597 cases which are less than deaths reported by Mumbai and Thane together. Gujarat reported 9976 deaths which are less than the death of Pune, Mumbai or Thane's deaths. Ahmednagar reported more deaths than entire Odisha. Nashik reported more deaths than the entire Asam or Telangana. These are just a few examples of extent of reporting by Maharashtra,’’ said Dr Awate.
‘’State is using different modes of information technology provided by Central government to handle this data effectively but there are certain technical glitches in these portals and apps also,’’ noted Dr Awate. ‘’Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases and deaths in the entire country. But due to the very size of the data, bottlenecks in data reporting at hospital and laboratory level and certain technical glitches of Covid-19 portal, we are facing the problem of delayed reporting and some discrepancy in the data,’’ he said.
However, Dr Awate argued that the overall disease surveillance system of the state is quite transparent and do every effort to gather pending information. ‘’There's no deliberate hiding of the data,’’ he opined.
According to Dr Awate, the state is using 2 online portals for reporting Covid-19 data. ‘’ICMR portal - CV analytics and Covid-19 portal. The state is using 2 online apps, one for the laboratory and another for the hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. RT-PCR app is designed for laboratory data uploading while facility app has been provided to every facility treating Covid-19 cases,’’ he said.
State downloads line list of positive cases and deaths from these portals at 12 midnight every day, get it cross-checked by the districts concerned, check the entire line list for any duplicate entrie and after doing this exercise and after confirmation of the authenticity of the data from all the districts, state prepares final state report and share it with the press, said Dr Awate.
‘’Daily review of all the districts and Municipal corporations is taken to rectify data discrepancy. From 26th May to 10th of June almost 8074 death records have been uploaded on the portal and included in the state's death tally.
