NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday warned the AAP government not to “play games” after the administration claimed that the news reports about preliminary results of a third sero survey showing 33 per cent prevalence of anti-bodies in the city were “fake”.
The Delhi government told the high court that its officials have not disclosed any information to the media about it.
However, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad did not accept the government’s claim. “Don’t show the press as unreliable. Don’t play games with the court like this,” the court said.
“Delhi government carried out the first sero survey jointly with ICMR and sampling was done from 11 districts. The second survey also carried out sampling at the district level. The third sero survey was done in collaboration with Maulana Azad Medical College and samples were selected from 280 divisions - 272 MCD wards and four divisions each of NDMC and Delhi Cantonment Board. Hence, the third sero survey was much more representative of the antibody prevalence at population level,” said the Chief Minister’s Office reacting to the HC statement.
As for the report of Sero Surveillance-3, represented by the governemt in the court, it reflects a reduction of the IgG antibodies seroprevalence from 28.7 per cent (as in Sero Surveillance-2) to 25.1 per cent.
The seroprevalence has declined in Northwest and Central Districts but has increased in West, South, Northwest and East Districts.
The submission was made in response to the court’s query of why the sero survey results were first shared with the media before it was even placed before the bench. Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain and additional standing counsel Satyakam assured the court that it was not doing anything of the sort.