COVID-19 testing triggers full-blown row in Bengal, TMC govt says not hiding figures

As COVID 19 continues its

depredation across India and the world, a major row has erupted in West Bengal, with many in the medical fraternity and opposition parties claiming the state is reporting fewer cases as only a minuscule proportion of the population is getting tested for the inscrutable enemy.

Till Saturday, the state had reported 233 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12 deaths, far lower than other big states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The constitution of an expert audit committee to certify whether the deaths have occured due to the coronavirus pandemic or other underlying ailments, called comorbidity in medical parlance, instead by the doctors who treated them, has led to growing scepticism about the reliability of the state government data.

The National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), ICMR's nodal COVID-19 testing facility in Kolkata, had recently said the state government is not sending enough samples for tests.

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