Odisha among Best Three States in COVID-19 Reporting in India: Stanford Study

Bhubaneswar: Transparent and accessible reporting of COVID-19 data is critical for public health efforts in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a latest study, Odisha is among the top three States in India in the reporting of Covid-19 data in terms of availability, accessibility, granularity, and privacy.

The study ‘Disparity in the quality of COVID-19 data reporting across India’ conducted by researchers from Stanford University has ranked Odisha third for reporting and presenting COVID-19 data with a CDRS (COVID-19 Data Reporting Score) of 0.51.

The CDRS ranges from 0 to 1 based on four key aspects of public health data reporting – availability, accessibility, granularity, and privacy.

The study covers 29 states based on the quality of COVID-19 data reporting done by the state during the two-week period from 19 May to 1 June, 2020. States that reported less than 10 total confirmed cases as of May 18 were excluded from the study, which has been published as a preprint in medRxiv on 21 July.
The best reporting States are Karnataka (0.61), Kerala (0.52), Odisha (0.51), Puducherry (0.51), and Tamil Nadu (0.51).

The worst reporting States are Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, both the States scored zero in CDRS. They did not publish any Covid data on their government or health department websites. Meghalaya (0.13), Himachal Pradesh (0.13), and Andaman and Nicobar Islands (0.17) scored the lowest in Covid reporting.

The study further stated that 10 States including Odisha provide a visual representation of the trend in COVID-19 data. A graphical representation of the information makes it more interpretable and accessible to the general people.

The Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) referral form for Covid-19 requires health workers to record data on age, gender, district, and comorbidities. However, ten States do not report any data stratified by age, gender, comorbidities or districts. Punjab and Chandigarh have compromised the privacy of individuals under quarantine by releasing their personally identifiable information on the official websites, the study said.

The Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha Government has developed a dedicate COVID-19 dashboard (http://statedashboard.odisha.gov.in/) to disseminate the latest information and statistics related to the COVID-19. The dashboard can be downloaded from Play Store and App Store, and on state dashboard.(odisha.gov.in). Besides, the government also shares information through social media and WhatsApp.