The Kerala government has decided to stop giving daily updates about the number of Covid cases in the state. The reason given by the state health minister’s office was that the number of cases has reduced.
It was on January 30, 2020, that the first case was reported in India when a medical student in Kerala who had returned from China tested positive. From that day, the state had been giving detailed daily updates on the number of cases, samples tested, etc. On Sunday, April 10, the state had reported 223 Covid cases.
With this decision, the state has stopped providing data that was given daily for two years and two months. But is this the right move? Has the time come to stop giving daily updates? Doctors have differing views.
“I think it is absolutely the right time to stop giving the daily updates to the public. We have to live with this. We have to get back to normal economic activities. But there must be close monitoring of the ICU admissions and Covid deaths by the health department,” said Dr N Sulphi, state president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
However, Dr Padmanabha Shenoy, immunologist and rheumatologist, said that if not daily, there should be weekly or monthly updates on Covid cases and the data should be shared with the public.
“Covid is not yet over. We can see the situation in the UK and how cases are increasing. There should be strong internal monitoring by the health department and they should release the data to the public weekly or monthly. This was one of our strong pillars while dealing with Covid. Cautious optimism is best,” he said.
Doctors also say that since restrictions are lifted and now daily case updates are not being provided, people will be more relaxed and think that Covid is over, which is not the case.
Dr Arun NM, internal medicine specialist, said, “It is not correct to completely stop giving the data. At least it should be made available on the website so whoever wants to access it can. Even for doctors, it would be helpful. Covid is not over yet, it is good to be cautious. If data is not provided on the website, chances are that we could miss the trends. It will be helpful for all.”
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