THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Health minister Veena George has accused the Centre of spreading misinformation that the state was not sharing daily Covid data with it. The minister, on Tuesday, said there was digital evidence of daily emails sent to the Centre as per the prescribed format. It was unfortunate that the official letter sent to the state was leaked to the media and given publicity at the national level, she added.
A day ago, the joint secretary of the Union health ministry, Lav Agarwal, had written to the principal secretary of the state health department, Rajan Khobragade, reminding him of the need to update Covid data on a daily basis. The letter stated that the state had failed to update data for five days, leading to backlog and spikes during subsequent updating.
Veena said that the state would reply to the Centre’s letter along with the digital evidence. She also defended the state government’s decision to stop daily Covid bulletins from April 11. “We are still collecting the data, analysing it and sharing it with the Centre. The health department will publish the data once a fortnight. If the Covid cases increase, the daily bulletins will be restarted,” she said.
The state reported 196 cases on April 10 and 209 on April 18. Eyebrows were raised as the state reported 213 deaths over four days from April 13. The minister, however, explained that the daily toll had reduced, and the spike was due to adding deaths that had not been accounted for earlier. Many Covid deaths were being registered across Kerala following appeals from families of victims.
Meanwhile, health experts, too, criticised the state’s decision to stop daily bulletins. Pointing out that the Covid threat was far from over, they said the public and health experts should be kept aware of the pandemic’s trajectory. The minister, however, said the government was not keen on spreading fear. Though curbs were lifted, the advisory on using masks and sanitiser was still in place, she added. “The state is also observing the increase in Covid cases in the country. We have to live with Covid, which has become endemic. The state is prepared to face another wave,” said Veena.