BS Number Wise: The case of the missing coronavirus data

Judged on 11 criteria, state and central governments don't do a good job in sharing accessible and timely information on the disease

In 1661, English statistician John Graunt wrote a book that changed how people and the state used data. In ‘Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality’, Graunt analysed data from parishes to estimate the population of London, its birth and mortality rates. By categorising the causes of death in the city, his work also laid the foundation of epidemiology.

Data has since shaped policy across the world. The first pieces of legislation reforming working hours and banning child labour used data as evidence.

India’s relationship with data is complicated. Data informs public policy and decision making, but governments often make critical information hard to get or not disclose it at all.

Covid-19 did reform this somewhat, with states sharing data on cases, deaths and tests, but information gaps exist and the process to get information on the disease is arduous.

Private initiatives like covid19india.org notwithstanding, data access largely depends on state and central governments.

Business Standard’s analysis found that of India’s 35 states and Union Territories (UTs), only 22 had a digital dashboard on Covid-19 information. Five did not have updated dashboards, and one (Puducherry) updated it with a lag of seven days.

Only 13 provided complete information on the kind of Covid-19 tests they conducted. Most did not categorise RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests separately.

Only 10 states provided data on district-wise tests for Covid-19, so it was impossible to estimate case positivity (number of Covid-19 cases as a proportion of total tests conducted) across districts.

On the 11 criteria for easy data access, not one state got a perfect score. Only seven of the 35 states and UTs satisfied 10 of the 11 criteria, whereas 12 states met fewer than seven.

The states that performed the worst on sharing data were also the largest in the country. Those that performed satisfactorily had myriad issues. Punjab, for instance, did not put its medical bulletin on its Covid-19 website for almost a week. Jharkhand, owing to a strike, did not update the dashboard. Data for Bihar is available only in Hindi. Andhra Pradesh, which satisfied seven of the 11 listed criteria, has been releasing its medical bulletin in Telugu.

When it came to larger states, data availability was correlated to their capacity to test for Covid-19. States that were the worst in making data accessible — Uttar Pradesh, which satisfied only two of the 11 criteria, Bihar (five of 11) and Madhya Pradesh (four of 11) — were also the worst in the country by tests per million.

The central government hasn’t been helpful either. While it does provide data on cases, deaths and recoveries, it does not give information on state-wise or district-wise tests. Besides, the website of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare does not provide access to historical data on Covid-19 in the country.

Governments need to be more transparent and forthcoming with data. The pandemic is an opportunity to course-correct.