Karnataka fares the best in terms of quality of COVID-19 data reporting, says a study conducted by researchers of Stanford University.
The study titled “Disparity in the quality of COVID-19 data reporting across India” analyses the quality of data reporting done by different State governments and Union Territories. While Karnataka fared the best, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were the poorest.
The abstract of the paper, which is yet to be published and not yet peer reviewed, states that the researchers have developed a framework to calculate a COVID-19 Data Reporting Score (CDRS). The study has been shared by the Karnataka government and takes into account four key aspects of public health data reporting — availability, accessibility, granularity, and privacy.
The data provided by the State governments and UTs were studied in a two-week period between May 19 and June 1. The study also excluded States that reported less than 10 total confirmed cases as of May 18.
States and UTs were given CDRS, ranging from 0 to 1. Karnataka with a score of 0.61 fares the highest.
The scores of the other States and UTs which got high scores were: Kerala (0.52), Odisha (0.51), Puducherry (0.51), and Tamil Nadu (0.51). Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh (0.0), Bihar (0.0), Meghalaya (0.13), Himachal Pradesh (0.13), and Andaman and Nicobar Islands (0.17) secured the bottom spots in this ranking. The study says that Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have not published their data on the Health Department or their government’s website.
Karnataka has fared well as it has the highest accessibility and availability of data. It states that the government releases a health bulletin and the State war room releases a bulletin everyday, besides maintaining a dashboard.
The study also states that there is a “strong disparity in the quality of COVID-19 data reporting done by the State governments in India.”
It points to the “lack of a unified framework for reporting COVID-19 data in India” and suggests that there is a need for a Central agency to monitor the quality of data reported by the States.
