‘Sans central testing strategy, states follow many procedures’: Eminent virologist Dr Jacob John

The Centre watched what was going on and entered the scene as an umpire and not as coach who provides the strategy and guidelines, he added.

India has crossed its peak and the cumulative COVID-19 figures showed a gradual decline from September 19, Dr John. “This is cumulative figure where the cases in some states are surging while it is declining elsewhere,” he added.

Pointing out that the population across the country was not homogenous, he said each State should be considered as a subcontinent, where there could be many epidemics running simultaneously. Because of this, there would be temporal and spatial differences in each State, noted Dr John.

Unlike in research where definite strategies exist to ensure transparency, states have been fighting with their backs to the wall. Hence it is only doctors who are interested in daily positivity figures while the public remain indifferent to it, he said.

While most of the southern states could be believed regarding their COVID numbers, states like Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were more bothered about honour than transparency. Among the worst is Gujarat where the government and officials want to present a rosy picture of the situation and hence resorted to underreporting. “That is why statistics from those states is taken with a pinch of salt,” added the eminent virologist.