BENGALURU: Former principal secretary to the department of health and family welfare M Madan Gopal has alleged that there has been a total lack of coordination among BBMP officials in giving out the number of Covid-related deaths in the daily bulletin. Due to this, a scare has been created in the minds of people in Karnataka, and hence, the daily death toll is anywhere from 60 to 90.
“I have informed the chief secretary about how the state health bulletin in the past 10 days is actually not providing real-time data, and instead, is giving out the count of deaths which happened the previous week or even the previous month,” Gopal told TNIE.
He said that these kind of numbers, when put out in public, tend to create fear among people. “Every day, the number of deaths in the bulletin is quite high, but when I analysed the cases, I found that there would be only two or three deaths on a particular day, but the bulletin would have 60 or more,” he explained.
Gopal said that disclosing correct data to the public is very important during such a pandemic. “When correct information doesn’t reach the public, it creates unnecessary fear and leads to knee-jerk reactions. We should instil confidence in the public, not create fear,” he said.
However, according to sources in the health department, there is a huge backlog of deaths which BBMP is still compiling, and hence, there is a delay in giving out real-time data. BBMP was also accused of fudging the data. To this, Madan Gopal added, “They are not fudging data, it’s pure inefficiency and lack of coordination. The chief secretary has assured me that once the backlog is cleared, the correct data will be provided in the health bulletin. My intention is to dispel fear and build confidence, not point out errors.” When asked, Munish Moudgil, officer in charge of the State War Room, told TNIE, “No state will want to inflate deaths. I will check with BBMP on this.”