Covid: Put all info on table

The passing away of Union minister of state for railways Suresh Angadi of pandemic Covid- 19 and the number of daily case load almost touching one lakh a day appear in contravention of Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s assessment of the situation. In his meeting with the chief ministers of seven most affected states, Mr Modi said India will gain an upper hand in the fight against the coronavirus if those chief ministers tracked the strategy in 60 districts with high case load.

The proclivity of the government to pick and choose from data to paint a rosy picture and the claim India is doing well on the pandemic front reflects the very dishonest way the government has approached the pandemic from the very beginning. The government has been economical with information and truth on every front, starting with the Prime Minister’s statement that the virus will be defeated in 21 days. It’s a universally accepted fact that the government did not use the long lockdown period to boost the healthcare infrastructure in the country and get itself prepared for the worst. Instead, it watched with disinterestedness the suffering of the people, including the guest workers who in their lakhs were forced to trek hundreds of kilometres home after fleeing the cities where they worked. Now, the virus is heading to villages, and many states, including Maharashtra, have reported shortage of adequate hospital beds there.

The passing away of one of the leaders India had picked to run its affairs must force the government to do a rethink on its approach to the pandemic. Tracking and containment strategy alone does not work. Instead, the government must aggressively augment the healthcare infrastructure with all the resources at its command and help the states financially to deal with the ground situation. The government must use data for action, and not for misleading people.