Kolkata: The Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) pointed out discrepancies in COVID-19 data during their two-week stay in West Bengal and claimed that the state government has taken an "antagonistic view" of the IMCT.
IMCT team leader and special secretary Apurva Chandra, in a letter written before leaving Bengal to state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, said, “The state government has taken an antagonistic view of the IMCT and has not supported the IMCT in the performance of its duties.
"This contrasts with the experience of IMCTs deputed to other states at the same time where daily schedules of visits by the IMCTs were prepared and meetings were held by the IMCTs from the highest levels of the state government to the field level functionaries.”
Chandra alleged that despite repeated requests to meet other state government functionaries they could only interact with the Principal Secretary (Health) through a video call on April 23, 2020.
While appreciating state government’s decision (taken on April 30, 2020) that all deaths of COVID patients would be indicated in the daily statistics and the death certificate would be issued by the hospital with the committee of doctors only examining a random sample, Chandra letter adds, “This is a big step towards transparency. At the same time it raises the total death count of COVID patients in the state to 105 on April 30, 2020.
"For a total reported number of 816 COVID patients, the mortality rate of 12.7 per cent is by far the highest in the country. This is extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing and weak surveillance and tracking.”
The IMCT also highlighted the discrepancy in the number of COVID-19 cases reported by the state government in its medical bulletins and while communicating with the central government.
"The bulletin issued on April 30, 2020 showed active COVID cases as 572, discharged after treatment 139 and expired due to COVID-19 was 33, which makes a total of 744. Same day, the state Principal Secretary (Health) informed the Union Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) that there are 931 cases (as per Chandra the state bulletin says 744) in Bengal leading to a discrepancy of 187 cases.
"The state needs to be transparent and consistent in reporting figures and not down play the spread of the virus. The May 1 and May 2 do not even mention the total number of cases and deaths in the state.”
On daily surveillance of individuals in containment zones, Chandra said, “The state government has claimed a very high level of daily surveillance of individuals in containment zones but no database was shown or results made available."
The IMCT, however, has appreciated the efforts made by the health department in increasing the testing rate from 400 per day till April 20, 2020 to 2410 tests per day on May 2, 2020.
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