BENGALURU: Is Bengaluru tying itself up in knots in vain over the bulking daily caseload of coronavirus cases? It now turns out there are glaring discrepancies in the data put out by the State War Room and that given by local ward corporators.
While a few anomalies can be attributed to human error, the difference is marked. For instance, Dharmaraya Swamy Temple ward has the highest number of cases — 2,445 — as per the war room, but the corporator says the number of cases is only 158. TNIE checked individual data for seven wards and found that all of them had discrepancies.
Dhanraj, husband of corporator Prathibha Dhanraj of Dharmaraya Swamy Temple ward said, “The war room data is not correct. They may be clubbing multiple wards under one constituency and putting out data.”As per State War Room data, Sarakki ward reported 777 cases, the second highest number. However, corporator Deepika Manjunatha Reddy said there were only 116 cases.
“The war room data is incorrect. While 80% of the patients are home-quarantined, around 25 people have recovered, 5-6 patients were on dialysis and passed away. Sarakki market was a source of transmission, so we closed the place,” said Deepika Reddy.
According to the war room, Shanthala Nagar ward has 589 patients, but a health officer claimed, “The ward has just 174 cases. In laboratories, addresses are not given properly and the ICMR portal registers the same address once the swab is positive.”
On Monday, this officer got two cases, residents of Malleswaram and Konanakunte, but their case was registered under Shanthala Nagar ward.
As opposed to 524 cases in Herohalli ward (fourth highest), a health officer said the ward had only 135 cases. Pattabhiram Nagar has 456 patients as per the war room, but corporator HC Nagarathna Murthy said the actual figure is 187, of whom 60 have recovered, nine passed away and the rest are active cases.
MLA NA Haris shared ward-wise breakup of Shanthinagar constituency as of Sunday, which showed that Shanthinagar ward (seventh highest) had 207 cases as opposed to war room data of 380 cases.
Chamarajpet ward (eighth highest) showed 374 cases but corporator G Kokila Chandrashekhar said the ward recorded only 158 cases, and 30 of them were discharged. “Entire Chamarajpet constituency might have over 300 cases, not the ward,” she said.
OFFICIAL TAKE
Munish Moudgil, in charge of the State War Room, said ward-wise data is not easy to get. “Usually, 90%-95% of the data is accurate, which serves the purpose of policy decisions but it’s not 100%. People give only the area name as address, at the time of testing, so that is all the software gets to start with. Some don’t even answer our calls,” Moudgil said.
“While shifting patients to hospitals, updating wards in the software is not easy, so ward-wise data is not precise,” he added.
Hephsiba Rani, incharge of BBMP War Room, said it usually goes with data given by the patient at the time of swab collection — driving licence, Aadhaar card or ration card which may have varying addresses, to begin with.
“When the ICMR portal shows the result as positive, the war room takes the address given by the patient who may not know the ward name or number. Field officers contact the patient and update the address. Some 10-15% inconsistencies will be there,” Hephsiba explained.