Image Courtesy:indiatoday.in
The Prime Minister held a video conference with Chief Ministers of nine states today repeating his new favourite catch-phrase “Do gaz doori” for good measure. Chief Ministers of Meghalaya, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are reported to have been in attendance.
While five of these states, viz; Meghalaya, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal appeared to bat for an extension of the lockdown in some form in their respective states. The Prime Minister reiterated the importance for states to enforce guidelines strictly in the hotspots i.e. the red zone areas. He stated that the efforts of the states should be directed towards converting the red zones into orange and thereafter to green zones.
Already in states like Maharashtra, Health Minister Rajesh Tope has hinted at the possibility of extending the lockdown in Mumbai and Pune to May 18. Tope told LiveMint, “The main objective of implementing the lockdown was to stop the spread of covid-19 pandemic and if the spread is not getting contained, we will have to extend the lockdown.” Mumbai alone has over 700 containment zones and the high population density of the metropolis with some of the most prohibitively expensive real estate prices forces millions to live cheek-by-jowl in low-income neighbourhoods that have now become the worst affected red zones.
Tope added, “At present, the issue is only with the slums where positive cases are increasing rapidly. We have to ensure that all the containment zones are completely cordoned off. We will extend the lockdown for 15 more days after 3 May only for the containment zones, if not for the entire Mumbai and Pune.”
But controversy surrounding the faulty rapid-testing kits, oddly never became part of the interaction between the PM and CMs. The official press release of the PIB about the PM’s meeting did not mention this at all.
The entire press release may be read here:
The ICMR controversy was left entirely to be tackled at the daily press briefing by the Press Information Bureau. But here, the entire communication focused on hammering the point that not a single rupee had been spent, so there was no loss. In a separate press release the PIB reiterated this point saying, “It needs to be stressed that ICMR has not made any payment whatsoever in respect of these supplies. Because of the due process followed (not going for procurement with 100% advance amount), GoI does not stand to lose a single rupee.”
In a communique to Chief Secretaries of all states and Union Territories, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that had acquired the faulty kits re-affirmed, “ICMR advocates that RT-PCR throat/nasal swab is the best use for diagnosis of Covid-19. RT-PCR test detects the virus early and is the best strategy to identify and isolate the individual.” But it goes on to ask the states and UTs to return the kits procured from two Chinese firms; Guangzhou Wandfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics. These kits had shown wide variation in their sensitivity and questions were subsequently raised about how their purchase was greenlighted in the first place.
The entire communique by ICMR may be read here:
Meanwhile, allegations were also made of two middlemen; importer Matrix Labs and distributor Rare Metabolics pocketing a sweet margin on the deal. The Delhi High Court has already stepped in and capped the price per kit at Rs 400/- per piece. But the government had fixed the price at Rs 600/-.
According to Business Today, Matrix Labs reportedly sold to Rare Metabolics at Rs 400/- a per piece, but Rare Metabolics sold it to the government for Rs 600/- per piece. Additionally, Matrix was to directly supply 50,000 pieces to the Tamil Nadu Government at Rs 600/- per piece.
But the PIB tried to explain away the matter saying, “… this was the first ever effort by any Indian agency to procure such kits and the rate quoted by the bidders was the only reference point.”
This rather curious press release may be read here:
Meanwhile, a discrepancy was found in the number of infected people as reported by ICMR and the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC). While NCDC recorded India’s confirmed cases at 26,496 as of 8 am on April 26, ICMR said the number is 27,583 — a difference of 1,087 patients. Th ematter was red-flagged in a meeting with state secretaries chaired by Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba this weekend.
The Indian Express reported that a presentation to the states made during this meeting showed that data from NCDC and ICMR matched in only eight regions — five states from the Northeast and the Union Territories of Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep. However, in 21 states and UTs, the numbers of confirmed cases are higher in the ICMR records as compared to NCDC as of data collected by 8 am on April 26. The highest difference is registered in Maharashtra, Gujarat and West Bengal where the ICMR data shows 8,848, 3,809 and 770 confirmed cases, respectively, while the NCDC data puts the case count at 7,628, 3,071 and 611, respectively. The highest difference among these 21 states is in Maharashtra — 1,220 cases!
However, the reverse is true in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. For instance, while Delhi’s NCDC count is 2,625, the ICMR number is 2,155. The corresponding numbers for MP are 2096 (NCDC) and 1778 (ICMR), and 1793 (NCDC) and 1572 (ICMR) for Uttar Pradesh. This discrepancy has not been explained so far and was also apparently not raised during the PM’s video-conference with CMs.