Letter was to protest against the number of Bengal zones marked red by Centre.
New Delhi: A letter from the West Bengal government’s health department to the Centre has strengthened the suspicion amongst her detractors that the number of Covid-19 positive patients are being underreported by the Mamata Banerjee government. In the letter sent to the Union Health Ministry on 30 April, the health department wrote that the number of positive cases in the state stood at 931 as on April 30, while the same day’s health bulletin from the state’s Chief Secretary showed the number of positive cases in the state to stand at 744.
The Bengal government did not issue any health bulletin on May 1 and according to Amit Malviya, who heads the BJP’s Information and Technology cell, the Bengal government had taken down its health department website late evening on Friday after the “under-reporting” of Covid-19 positive numbers was highlighted by him.
In a health bulletin released on Saturday night, the columns for total positive case count, total active case count and total number of deaths are “missing”. The letter sent to the Union Health Ministry also had a district wise break-up of the number of cases in each district. According to the break-up, the highest number of positive cases were reported from Kolkata, where the number stood at 489, followed by Howrah and North 24 Parganas, where the positive cases are 176 and 122, respectively. The letter mentioned that eight districts had no positive cases, among which were Alipurduar and Birbhum districts and, therefore, they are in the green zone.
However, according to medical documents accessed and seen by this correspondent, there has been at least three positive Covid-19 patients reported on April 30 from Birbhum district, while according to a local Bengali news report from Alipurduar, at least four corona positive patients were found in the district. This letter written by Vivek Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Health, West Bengal government, was to protest against the number of red zones allocated by the Union Health Ministry for Bengal.
The Union Health Ministry has marked 10 districts in Bengal as red zones, while the Bengal government contested this, arguing that this has been an erroneous assessment by the Union Health Ministry and that only four red zones existed in West Bengal.
“As many as 10 districts in Bengal are shown as red zones. This is an erroneous assessment; based on current parametres of government of India for categorisation of areas for Covid-19, the districts in red zone are only four—Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur,” the letter from the Bengal government said. The Bengal government has come under the scanner for forming an “expert audit committee” to ascertain Covid-19 deaths.
According to the Bengal government’s own admission, 105 people have died, out of which 33 have been directly ascertained as due to Covid-19, while 72 others due to co-morbidities. This makes the mortality percentage in Bengal the highest in India at over 12%.
The Bengal government did not issue any health bulletin on May 1 and according to Amit Malviya, who heads the BJP’s Information and Technology cell, the Bengal government had taken down its health department website late evening on Friday after the “under-reporting” of Covid-19 positive numbers was highlighted by him.
In a health bulletin released on Saturday night, the columns for total positive case count, total active case count and total number of deaths are “missing”. The letter sent to the Union Health Ministry also had a district wise break-up of the number of cases in each district. According to the break-up, the highest number of positive cases were reported from Kolkata, where the number stood at 489, followed by Howrah and North 24 Parganas, where the positive cases are 176 and 122, respectively. The letter mentioned that eight districts had no positive cases, among which were Alipurduar and Birbhum districts and, therefore, they are in the green zone.
However, according to medical documents accessed and seen by this correspondent, there has been at least three positive Covid-19 patients reported on April 30 from Birbhum district, while according to a local Bengali news report from Alipurduar, at least four corona positive patients were found in the district. This letter written by Vivek Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Health, West Bengal government, was to protest against the number of red zones allocated by the Union Health Ministry for Bengal.
The Union Health Ministry has marked 10 districts in Bengal as red zones, while the Bengal government contested this, arguing that this has been an erroneous assessment by the Union Health Ministry and that only four red zones existed in West Bengal.
“As many as 10 districts in Bengal are shown as red zones. This is an erroneous assessment; based on current parametres of government of India for categorisation of areas for Covid-19, the districts in red zone are only four—Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur,” the letter from the Bengal government said. The Bengal government has come under the scanner for forming an “expert audit committee” to ascertain Covid-19 deaths.
According to the Bengal government’s own admission, 105 people have died, out of which 33 have been directly ascertained as due to Covid-19, while 72 others due to co-morbidities. This makes the mortality percentage in Bengal the highest in India at over 12%.
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