Everyday, past midnight, I compile data on the number of samples tested for COVID-19 and the total number of positive cases recorded till date in India. However, the job at hand is always incomplete. Data from Telangana and Tripura and the Indian Council of Medical Research’s daily bulletin are released only the next morning. The data help us track the response of the States to the pandemic, and are used as part of the State tracker on COVID-19 on The Hindu’s website as well as to churn out data stories for print.
I started compiling COVID-19 data in late March when the pandemic in India was still at a nascent stage. It was clear by then that testing was crucial in identifying and isolating those who were infected, to control the spread of the virus. Hence, it became necessary to track how States fared on the testing front. But this was not easy.
The initial struggle was to identify the online sources. States disseminated data in about four different ways. States such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh published their daily bulletins on their Health Department websites or as press releases on their Information and Public Relations Department website. Others such as Rajasthan, Odisha and Gujarat updated their numbers on their State health dashboards. The daily bulletins of some States such as Maharashtra, Assam and Bihar were uploaded on Twitter by the State Health Departments. Uttar Pradesh’s bulletin is circulated only among a select group of people in touch with health officials of the State, who then put out the data in the public domain.
While most States today have a dedicated web portal for COVID-19 where bulletins are issued, is it frustrating that there is no standard format for publication of data. There are differences in the details provided by the States too. For example, when the Delhi government was questioned by the Delhi High Court for using very few RT-PCR tests and ramping up rapid antigen detection tests, we decided to do a story. Our aim was to record the share of antigen tests across States to check whether they exceeded the number of RT-PCR tests. We found that only some States published data on the different tests being conducted. We had to contend with data from these States even though most have taken recourse to rapid antigen testing lately.
While ICMR publishes only bare-bones information on testing, the Union Health Ministry’s data publications too leave a lot to be desired. The Health Ministry website had district-wise data on cases and deaths. However, the data was in a state of disarray. There was no time stamp on the data. Nor were the numbers archived, which meant we had to use Internet archival tools to access the previous day’s data. We also found data with errors (different district spellings, States having cases not attributed to any district, etc.). District-wise data have now been removed from the Ministry website.
If we are to tackle this pandemic effectively, information is the key. Administrations should strive to be transparent. A standard set of guidelines which explain the kind of information given should govern bulletins which are published at the State level. This is bound to benefit not just citizens but epidemiologists and health experts whose research will help us find the means to end this pandemic. And I look forward to a good night’s sleep.