BENGALURU: The Karnataka health department sprang a surprise on Wednesday morning by omitting vital information from the COVID-19 bulletin but backtracked later in the day after drawing flak.
The department had been releasing detailed information on the patient number, sex, age, transmission and travel history along with the district hospital where they are admitted.
But on Wednesday morning, it did away with all these details and stuck to the summary of new cases, tally of cases, recoveries and deaths so far. Both the medical education minister and health minister denied any knowledge of the change.
"I was unaware of the change in format. It was brought to my attention by the media on Wednesday afternoon. I will check with the health department," said Dr K Sudhakar, Medical Education Minister. Health Minister B Sriramulu also claimed he did not know of the changes.
The health department also tweeted from its official handle that the format has been changed, sparking outrage from the public, media and medicos alike. People raised concerns about the lack of transparency and suspected that the department was trying to hide information that could indicate community transmission.
Usually, Severe Acute Respiratory Illness and Influenza Like Illness cases are mentioned if the patients had no travel or contact history, but that was missing.
Sesrikanth, a Twitter user, commented on the department's post saying, "All of us were really appreciating the transparency, detailing and timeliness of the COVID-19 positive cases information by GoK till date.Why this sudden change?This step gives an impression that it is now going out of control. Please provide all the details as earlier."
While being tight-lipped about the reason behind the change, health department officials said the evening bulletin would contain all the details.
At the daily 5 pm press meet, Minister Suresh Kumar, spokesperson for COVID-19, clarified on the issue saying, "We have nothing to hide or be embarrassed by. It takes time to collate all the patient details as there is a huge surge in cases every day. The department is finding it difficult to upload everything by 12 when the mid-day bulletin is released. Hence, we will be putting out patient details separately, in the form of annexures both in the afternoon and evening."
Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said, "We have to upload so many cases and collate information without making many mistakes, which we are unable to do by afternoon. In fact, no other state gives all this information and we have been transparent all this while."
After the outrage, however, it was business as usual as the evening bulletin was back to the old format including each patient's details.