West Bengal government on Monday admitted that its “highly complicated” system of reporting COVID-19 cases led to the difference in figures regarding COVID-19 cases in the state. However, it clarified that it was “not intentional” and has been rectified.
Addressing media persons at the state secretariat Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said it had come to their notice that due to the complicated reporting system sometimes the cases which came up after issuing the daily bulletin were not recorded anywhere.
“We were unable to understand the reason behind the difference in figures at several places. The biggest problem was that our reporting system was highly complicated as a result we have seen that the cases which came up after the bulletin was issued have not been recorded anywhere. It was not intentional,” said Sinha.
“When the system started we thought that it was foolproof. We were updating the system and it took two to three days. Hence we were not able to give a cumulative figure as we were not sanguine about it,” said Sinha.
He also said that there was a “gap in reporting” as data on the real-time chart was not coming as smoothly from private hospitals as it was coming from government hospitals.
Sinha said that the number of total COVID-19 cases in Bengal as on May 4 stands at 1259 out of which 218 have been discharged after being recovered.
“Active cases in Bengal today is 908. The recovery rate in the state is 17.32%. The rate of positive cases per million population is 13.98%. The rate of deaths per million population is 1.47%. Currently, we are conducting 279 tests per million population,” said Sinha.
As for the death toll, he said that the expert committee has examined 105 death cases and said 33 died directly due to COVID-19 conditions and 72 because of co-morbid conditions.
“As of today, 61 have died directly due to virus… so far 25116 samples have been tested in the state,” said Sinha.