State published inflated testing figures for 5 days

The Health Department, in its bulletin on Thursday, blamed a technical problem in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) portal for the inflated testing figures reported from July 17 to July 21.

On Wednesday, DH had reported that for the first time more antigen tests were done than the RTPCR tests in a single day.

According to the Health department’s figures, 24,319 antigen tests were carried out as against 23,256 RTPCR tests on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Health department clarified that only 6,107 antigen and 21,666 RTPCR and other tests were conducted on Wednesday.

In all, the state tested 27,773 samples on July 22 (Wednesday) as opposed to its claim in Wednesday’s bulletin of testing 48,140 samples.

The bulletin follows a format where under the subhead ‘lab data’, a column with the header ‘today’s’ gives the total number of samples tested and the total samples reported as negative. it also has five other columns for RT-PCR, CBNAAT, TrueNAT, Antigen, and Cumulative.

A senior official of the health department said, “When we say today’s in the bulletin it is samples tested from 12-noon previous day to 12 noon today. So it is essential data from two separate days and not like 5 pm to 5 pm cycle followed for new cases detected.” IAS Officer Arundhati Chandrashekhar, in-charge of lab testing data, did not respond to calls and messages from DH.

“Due to technical problem in ICMR portal, the cumulative figure of rapid antigen tests done was given instead of the tests done per day. This discrepancy is seen in the testing details given from July 17 to July 21,” said Thursday’s bulletin. Even Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar tweeted, “So far, we conducted 11,40,647 tests across
88 labs.”

But on July 16, the bulletin said the state had conducted cumulative tests of 9,25,477. As per Thursday’s clarification, 1,26,499 tests were conducted from July 17 to 21. On July 22, only 27,773 tests were conducted. This gives a cumulative total of 10,79,749, lesser than the tests claimed by the minister. When DH contacted Sudhakar, he said he will look into it.