Covid-19: Data mismatch in Cachar leads to confusion among the people

May 24: With the advent of the 2nd wave of coronavirus in the country, the number of positive cases of COVID-19 detected daily are updated starting from the district level to that by Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. This data is helpful in formulating assumptions about the extent of the virus infection, positivity rate, mortality rate, recovery rate, total infected and number of existing active cases. However, at times, confusion paves the way among the people due to the mismatch in the data provided by the districts.

As for instance, the Covid data provided by Cachar district recently has given rise to serious confusion not only to the media houses but also to the public in general. In 2021, the daily Covid data used to be furnished to the media once in the night by District health Department. At present, the data is supplied to the media twice a day, initial data till 6 or 7 PM and the final score at around 10 to 11 PM.

Suddenly, since the last few days, District Administration Cachar also started to provide daily corona updates of Cachar which is also shared in the twitter handle and Facebook page by the district administration. However, at the same time, the  District Health Department too continued to share data in the media group. Surprisingly, the data provided by both the sources did not tally a single day. Moreover, things become much more complex when the daily Covid data shared by NHM Assam (in its twitter handle) shows a 3rd version of the Covid-19 daily data of Cachar!

Let’s have a quick glance of the data provided by 3 sources for Cachar district for the last 3 days:

Covid-19 data for 21 May, 2021:

Covid-19 data for 22 May, 2021:

Covid-19 data for 23 May, 2021:

A casual glance at the comparative data provided by three sources reveals wide disparity. On 21 & 22 May, the data provided by District Administration Cachar in its twitter handle and Facebook page shows the day’s total positive cases much lower than that provided by District health Department. A probable reason for this mismatch could be that both District Administration Cachar and NHM Assam updates their data earlier, whereas the District Health Department provides the data much later. So naturally, the numbers provided by the health department at around 11 PM every are the latest.

However, this logic fails to explain the Covid data provided on 23 May, 2021. On this day, District Administration Cachar in its twitter handle (9.54 PM on 23 May) depicted the day’s total as 399. Whereas, District Health Department at 11.30 PM on 23 May informed that 302 persons were detected positive during the day. Naturally, there arises much confusion not only to those of the media, but also to the public in general.

The same mismatch also occurs in the death data provided by the Silchar Medical College authority, District Health Department and the twitter handle of NHM Assam. Moreover, the daily report provided by the District Health Department would have been much comprehensive if the total number of patients discharged on daily basis were provided as they are done so in our two neighbouring districts.

Multiple sources of data within the same district further complicates the issue. Unless and until, there is synchronization in the data provided from all the sources, people will continue to remain confused.