For two days — June 16 and 17, the Health department bulletin had information about the number of tests conducted to discover COVID-19 patients. Out of the 1,251 tests, 17% results were positive on June 16, and on the next day, out of 1,096 tests, 24.5% were positive. On June 18, a whopping 352 test results were positive.
Curiously, information about the number of tests conducted disappeared from the June 18 bulletin, triggering some angry questioning by netizens.
“Arre tests gayab ho gaya fir se... Ek ek din ek ek format like Navaratri (data about number of tests has disappeared. Everyday they are using a new format like Navratri,” wrote Sudarshan on Twitter.
On Friday, the bulletin disclosed that 50,569 tests were conducted till now.
Even the information about tests conducted did not go uncontested. “Yesterday total tests 44,431.. now 45,911. Which means 1,480 samples taken but you mentioned as 1,069. Don’t play with public with irresponsible data,” wrote Hari Krishna on the microblogging platform. On the first day the test data was included, there were bouquets for the health ministry.
“Sir, good format. These days we were afraid what and why the government is hiding. It’s good to be frank. People are not ignorant. What we need is correct information. If we know the depth of the problem we will be more careful. Thanks for including test numbers. It creates confidence,” wrote Revanth Kulkarni applauding the test numbers.
But the information in the medical bulletins has remained patchy. On June 8, the health department did not issue the medical bulletin. According to information, 393 patients were discharged on that day, with five deaths being reported. But the medical bulletin showed 1,742 as the total patients discharged on June 7 as well as on June 9.
The appearance and disappearance of data columns have not gone unchallenged. “We would be happy if this includes details like total number of discharges and total cases tested in a day along with the total positive cases detected area-wise. The exact location where the positive cases were detected so that people would really be more cautious…” wrote another social media user Shirish Chandra.
The State government had announced on June 15 that 50,000 tests would be conducted within 10 days in Hyderabad and its surrounding districts constituting 30 Assembly constituencies. Test data has become something of a holy grail at a time when the World Health Organisation (WHO) linked the fight against COVID to the number of tests on March 16.
Between March 5 and 24, the Telangana government disclosed data about the number of tests conducted before it stopped.
Till March 24, only 764 tests were conducted in the State even though 17,283 air travellers were identified as having symptoms during screening.
Till May 30, the number of tests conducted in the state stood at 30,000.
Between March 2, when the first COVID-19 case was detected in Telangana, and June 17, the State has averaged 429 tests per day.
