On May 5, 2021 Belagavi saw its official single day the highest spike in fresh COVID cases with 920 new cases were reported by the local health department.
The state on a whole reported a whopping 50,000+ cases.
The health department each day issues a COVID bulletin in which it makes a mention of the new cases, tests, deaths etc, and it is place since last year.
Underreporting cases has been in the news for the entire country and every state and how can Belagavi be left behind.
The local dailies each day share a number of cases for the day, but those figures never match the ones shared by the Health department.
The deaths have been the most underreported. For instance in the past week each day the Sadashiv Nagar crematorium reported around 10-12 cremations as per COVID protocol meaning they were COVID positive, but the district administration categorically denied saying no such deaths have occurred.
Even yesterday May 5, local channels reported 11 deaths whereas only 2 were mentioned in the bulletin.
Yesterday local Marathi dailies shared 1320 new cases while bulletin 920 new cases were reported.
Their source of information could be the ICMR labs where the entire data from all the labs are collated but, the health department does not show them in total.
| May | Local reports | Health Bulletin | % difference |
| 5 | 1604 | 920 | 43 |
| 4 | 1320 | 615 | 53 |
| 3 | 956 | 559 | 42 |
| 1 | 857 | 532 | 38 |
Belagavi has 2227 beds in Govt hospitals and 3928 in Private hospitals but all these are not allocated for COVID.
Getting an ICU bed is now mere impossible, oxygen is still available, but there is shortage, but somehow it is being managed. But shortage is clearly visible.
The new COVID strain and the spread has been many folds, last year it was one in a family, but this time it is the entire family like 4 or 5 members due to which one is seeing such large numbers.
Age wise, Gender wise and location wise data is not shared for any comparison.
Stay Home Stay Safe, Wear a Mask….
I don’t understand why there is no transparency in reporting. It is health related and affecting people’s lives. In fact wardwise data should be available. Further, vaccination centres should be properly administered. Long queues could be potential ground for spreading the virus. Each centre should inform the citizens, registered in that Centre to come at particular time.
It needs an undercover ops to catch the lying officials. These folks have least regards to public….all they are interested is saving their jobs and keeping their masters happy. It is an open secret as to how many citizens trust public health department?
Yes, surely these nos are under-reported. But not only govt. is to blame. In some situations when 1 person in a group or family gets tested postitive, others also have symptoms but directly take treatment without getting tested. We will never know the true figures. But we can all help out the situation by staying home unless essential and by wearing correct masks properly. We all have to be responsible for ourselves and to our community first. Then we can point fingers. Sadly people are still not taking adequate care. Stay healthy and safe!
What is source of information for Marathi news papers and channels? Are they fair enough to be believed? Who will enquire about this ?
Why don’t allabout belgaum collect data directly from labs and provide information about cases ,if possible.?instead of pointing , supporting someone.
I am not pointing giving you the true picture their source is also mentioned in the story