The actual number of Delhiites tested daily for COVID-19 using RT-PCR test is lesser than the city government’s official daily bulletin data by about 3,000 tests a day, at least in the first 10 days of July, a new set of data accessed by The Hindu shows.
When asked about the discrepancy, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said: “There is an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) website from where we take the data. They reconciled their data and we changed it accordingly.”
The data on testing in the daily bulletin till July 12 was under the heading ‘RTPCR tests conducted today’. But it was actually the total number of tests done by government and private labs in Delhi, which had samples of people from outside the city as well. This was never disclosed in the bulletin.
The new set of data for July 1-10, which gives the number of Delhiites tested using RT-PCR, is less by an average of 3,000 every day compared to the official daily bulletin data for the same period.
For instance, according to the official bulletin "RTPCR Tests conducted today" on July 1 is 10,978, but the actual number of people of Delhi tested on the same day is 7,490, according to the new data accessed, which is lesser by 31.7%. Similarly, the difference is 31.6% on July 2 and 31.04% on July 3.
On July 13, the daily bulletin released by the Delhi government reduced the total number of tests done till date from 7,89,853 to 6,92,845 — a dip of 97,008. This is despite the fact that over 12,000 tests were done as per the bulletin on July 13.
The only explanation given was: “As per the reconciled data of ICMR for Delhi”. But official sources told The Hindu that it was due to switching to the new set of data. Also, all the 97,008 tests were RT-PCR tests.
“Earlier, the data given [in official bulletin] was of tests done by labs in Delhi. The new data is of people of Delhi tested. Last week, after requests by the Delhi government, the ICMR opened a new dashboard and started providing the new data which was not available before. The earlier data was also from ICMR,” an official source said.
The ICMR dashboard is not accessible to the public. The official added that after weeding out results from other States, it was found that the total number of tests in Delhi was 6.92 lakh.
From July 13, the Delhi government started providing the new set of data in its daily bulletin, which is the total number of Delhiites tested, under the heading ‘RTPCR/CBNAAT/True NAAT Tests conducted today’.
No mention of switch
The government never officially mentioned the switch in data.
But as per the new set of RT-PCR data, the tests were less than previous numbers by about 30-40% on average. This is because the government started providing the data of only people of Delhi tested.
Though in the earlier set of data the number of tests included people from others States, the number of positive results mentioned in the bulletin were only for people of Delhi. This means that the positivity (positive results divided by total tests) calculated using the earlier set of data was less than the actual positivity rate. So, more people were testing positive per 100 tests done than thought before.
Also, since the Delhi government is yet to release the actual daily people of Delhi tested between March and July 12 using RT PCR tests and currently providing only the actual people of Delhi tested, it is not possible to compare and analyse July's condition with June or May accurately.
This is not the first time that there has been problems with data during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
In the second week of May, there were multiple media reports that the total number of COVID-19-related deaths reported by the Delhi government was fewer than the number of deaths being reported by hospitals.
The government responded that the hospitals sent data on deaths to a government-appointed death audit committee, and only deaths certified by the committee were counted as part of the official death toll. The government blamed the hospitals for delaying reporting deaths.
