Guarded by numbers academic institutions should fill the void that’ll be created after covid19india org stops updating

Guarded by numbers academic institutions should fill the void that’ll be created after covid19india org stops updating

After 16 months of helping India track the Covid pandemic, the excellent volunteer-driven website covid19india.org announced that it will stop data updates after October 31. This is a big loss to researchers, journalists, government officials and ordinary citizens who have followed the pandemic’s ebb and flow through this website’s unfailing daily updates on infections, testing, recoveries, test positivity rates, mortality and vaccinations across states and even districts. It is quite a telling story that some 300-odd volunteers with regular day jobs outdid GoI and big universities by collating the data released by each state government.

Like Johns Hopkins and Oxford universities with their similar initiatives, Indian academic institutions must take the data baton, and not let the absence of covid19india.org be felt. There is overwhelming public good in keeping pandemic data live and a bonus is the accompanying public visibility: The website claims it received 4.4 billion visits, testimony to the voracious appetite among citizens for information. Good data has been critical to our understanding and fightback against this virus and it is a matter of regret that policymakers often failed to recognise this imperative.

Recall that inadequate genome sequencing obscured the growing threat from the Delta variant before the second wave. Despite 50 crore vaccinations, information on breakthrough infections is sketchy. Recent serosurveys indicating no antibodies in 10% of vaccinated participants demand public disclosure of the vaccine used and duration since inoculation. With states still complaining of vaccine shortages, GoI can solve this niggling dispute by publicising advanced fortnightly vax allocations.

The public-facing CoWin dashboard exemplifies how transparency has produced statistics offering key insights on the vaccination programme’s successes and shortcomings. It took Centre’s affidavits to the Supreme Court for the general public to learn specific details of the ambitious plan to vaccinate all adults by December. That information has helped people patiently await their turn for vaccination. Proactive data disclosures will always help the fight against the pandemic. Like IIT researchers who accurately predicted the second wave, regular surveys on vaccine efficacy and seropresence will help public health experts better chart this pandemic’s course.