HC to Govt: Educate People that COVID-19 is increasing by each day, use Media to publish stats

The Department of Public Health, Medical and Family Welfare, Government of Telangana submitted that all these vital statistics aren't only collected, but also analysed on a weekly basis and thus this data is readily available with the State Government and therefore not difficult for the State to publish it on a daily basis.

The petitioner submitted that in the middle of March, 2020, a time when the COVID-19 was beginning to spread, the State Government was issuing a Media Bulletin on a daily basis, which contained a detailed information with regard to the Persons in Home Quarantine, Total Samples Tested, Total Samples Positive for COVID-19, Total Contacts of the Positive cases, Total contacts traced and contacted, the Number of Persons Quarantined in State Quarantine Centres, and with regard to admissions, and discharges, in different hospitals of the State.

However after the COVID-19 cases started rising steadily, the publication of the info stopped.

Taking a note of the submission, the Court noted:

"According to him, the State of Kerala gives out information with regard to the Number of Persons Tested, the Number of Persons in Home Quarantine, the Number of Samples sent for Testing, the Number of Testing of Priority Groups, i.e., from the groups like healthcare workers,persons with high social exposure, workers, the age and gender of the patients. The said vital information is not being revealed by our State. Instead, the recent most Media Bulletin, such as one dated 26,05.2020 merely indicates the increase of total positive cases of COVID-19 as on that date, the number of confirmed positive cases, and the number of persons cured, or discharged, as on that date."

The petition further contended that until and unless the relevant data is collected, and publicized, the extent of the disease spreading through the population would continue to be unknown. Moreover, since the relevant data isn't being publicized, people at large will be of the opinion that the pandemic is no longer a serious illness, and that they are safe to venture out, and they can afford to ignore the safety measures being prescribed by different guidelines issued by the Government.

In this view, the Court sated:

"According to the learned counsel, this would only aggravate the situation as surreptitiously, the disease would only spread its wings unknown to the innocent people, This may lead to a medical disaster."

It was further submitted that within the last two weeks, the number of persons infected with COVID-19, has increased at very large but since the Government is neither testing the people at large extent, nor revealing the relevant data, the phenomenal number of persons being detected may just be the tip of the iceberg.

The order has been passed by bench comprising of CHIEF JUSTICE SRI RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN and SRI JUSTICE B,VIJAYSEN REDDY on 08-06-2020.