VIJAYAWADA: Delay in updating of data regarding Covid positive cases, tests and recoveries due to technical glitches is leading to contradictory projections of the district-wise positivity rate by the state and the Centre. In the Covid dashboard of the Union Ministry of Health, the positivity rate of six districts of Andhra Pradesh for the period between June 25 and July 1 was reported to be over 10 per cent each, and between 5 and 10 per cent in another six districts. Only Kurnool had less than 5 per cent positivity rate. This is in contradiction to what the state government had said while extending curfew relaxation hours recently.
The state health department said only five districts — Chittoor, Prakasam, Krishna, West Godavari, and East Godavari — had a positivity rate of over 5 per cent, and the figure in the remaining eight districts was under 5 per cent. Health commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar said some Covid-19 cases from previous weeks were updated later due to server issues. “We are rectifying the same.”
According to the Centre’s Covid dashboard, the weekly positivity rate in East Godavari was 16.10 per cent, 12.2 per cent in Visakhapatnam, 11.68 per cent in Chittoor, 11.06 per cent in Prakasam, 10.54 per cent in West Godavari, 10.22 per cent in Nellore, 9.61 per cent in Guntur, 9.25 per cent in Krishna, 8.49 per cent in Kadapa, 7.08 per cent in Anantapur, 6.92 per cent in Vizianagaram, 6.01 per cent in Srikakulam and 3.67 per cent in Kurnool.
As per the data provided by the State Command Control Room (Covid-19), the average positivity rate for the said period did not exceed 5 per cent in the state, and at least 70 per cent of the districts in the state should have a positivity rate of below 5 per cent to get that figure. For instance, Srikakulam had the lowest daily positivity rate of 0.13 per cent on June 28 and the highest of 2.56 per cent on June 27. Even if the weekly positivity rate is calculated it is less than 5 per cent, whereas it was projected as 6.01 per cent in the Centre’s Covid dashboard.
Similarly, Guntur had the lowest and highest daily positivity rates of 2.72 per cent and 4.58 per cent last week ending Thursday. However, the central government’s dashboard showed that the weekly positivity rate was 9.61 per cent. The state health officials said the reason for the difference in the figures could only be that in the central database information pertaining to the cases, tests and recovery of the previous weeks were updated later due to a database error.