UP and Bihar worst in Covid reporting, Karnataka best: Stanford study

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, July 26, 2020: There is a disparity in Covid-19 reporting by states and union territories in India, found a new study conducted by researchers from Stanford University.

While the best Covid-19 reporting has been by Karnataka, the worst has been by Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, according to a Covid-19 data reporting index created by the researchers.

The study is not yet peer-reviewed and has been published as a preprint in medRxiv on 21 July.

Researchers ranked the states according to its availability, accessibility, granularity, and privacy. This framework was used to calculate a Covid-19 Data Reporting Score (CDRS) for 29 states during a two-week period — from 19 May to 1 June. CDRS ranged from 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest).

Researchers found that the CDRS varied from 0.61 (good) in Karnataka to 0.0 (poor) in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Overall, the quality of Covid-19 reporting in India was only 0.26, which showed poor reporting across the country. States that reported less than 10 total confirmed cases as of 18 May were excluded from the study.