The Union health ministry on Thursday asked opposition-ruled Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Maharashtra to take steps to curb a spike in their daily novel coronavirus cases, but the Centre’s own data show a steady decline in Bengal.
Weekly average new cases have seen a significant rise in Maharashtra over the past two weeks, but Kerala has seen a marginal rise, and Chhattisgarh has seen a marginal decline.
But the ministry said the states “are reporting an upsurge in the number of daily new cases in recent days,” and asked them to check the rise flagging concerns about the emergence of the fast-spreading UK variant in India.
Bengal’s minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya said on Thursday night that she was yet to be informed of such a letter and would comment when she actually went through it.
Trinamul Congress vice-president Saugata Roy, however, said the letter would be yet another instance of the BJP-led Centre allegedly trying to rub states ruled by parties opposed to the BJP the wrong way.
“This has always been the approach of this Centre, singling out states opposed to them, not pulling up states friendly to them,” said Roy, the Dum Dum MP. “It obviously smacks of political vendetta or opportunism, whatever we choose to call it,” he added.
BJP state chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya dismissed the allegation. “There should not be any divisive politics over the Covid-19 pandemic. There has not been any political vendetta in any of the Centre’s actions in the pandemic,” said Bhattacharya.
The health ministry’s datasets show that Bengal’s seven-day moving average for daily new cases has declined every day at least in the past two weeks — from 2,023 new cases on December 22, 1,928 on December 23, 1,835 on December 24 and so on to fall to 1,014 on January 4, 953 on January 5, and 908 on January 6.
The seven-day moving average is viewed as a superior measure of trends because it takes into account day-to-day variations that might occur because of any rise and fall in numbers of tests done on account of holidays or other factors.
Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has asked the states to analyse the surge at the district and sub-district levels to understand the reasons for the rise.
Bengal on Thursday reported 921 new infections, 1,295 recoveries and 18 deaths, aiding a drop in its total of active cases for the 73rd consecutive day (since Vijaya Dashami on October 26). The total of active cases is 8,476 now.