More Covid positive cases than tests conducted in West Bengal?

The ‘anomaly’ that appears comparing the two reports, has given the BJP an opportunity to take a dig at the facts put forth in the state

Could there be more people reported positive than the number of tests conducted? Juxtaposing two fact-sheets on Covid tests carried out on a single day in West Bengal, it appears so.

While the state health department hasn’t reacted so far, the BJP has challenged the reported numbers on Covid tests carried out in West Bengal on January 12, also Swami Vivekananda’s birthday.

The bulletin issued by the state’s department of health and family welfare for January 12 showed that 71,792 samples were tested in the state for Covid. The state reported 22,155 new cases on the day.

On the same day, as part of activities on Vivekananda’s birthday, a record number of tests were done in Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee’s constituency. Twitter posts via Banerjee’s official handle mentioned that 53,203 tests have been conducted in a single day, and 1,151 cases were found positive.

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Subtracting number of tests (71,792 - 53,203 = 18,589), and number of patients found positive in Banerjee’s constituency (22,155 - 1,151 = 21,004), numerically it appears that for the rest of the 41 constituencies in the state, 18,589 tests were carried out and 21,004 cases were reported as positive. This, in terms of numbers, means that for every test done, more than one person tested positive, the rate being 1.13 cases per test.

The ‘anomaly’ that appears comparing the two reports, has given the BJP an opportunity to take a dig at the facts put forth in West Bengal. Amit Malviya, BJP’s co-incharge for West Bengal, on Sunday, tweeted, “If both, West Bengal Health Department run by Mamata Banerjee and data put out by Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee for 12th January are correct, then Bengal tested 18,589 people across 41 LS constituencies of which 21,004 tested positive! 113% positivity rate.”

“Every test carried out is recorded. If there was an issue with information-entry on the day concerned, the adjustment in state figures could have been made on the following day. But we didn’t see this reflected later,” Dr Indranil Khan, president of BJP’s Yuva Morcha in the state, said.

A nodal health official in the state government reached out by DH for comment, didn’t respond.

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