“Misleading,” ICMR dismisses news reports claiming it published a study about Coronavirus hitting peak in mid-November

The Indian Council of Medical Research, the medical body spearheading India’s fight against CoVID-19 yesterday took to Twitter to reject a news report by PTI, which claimed that ICMR had published a study, in its official capacity, suggesting that India’s CoVID-19 peak would now arrive around mid-November.

“The news reports attributing this study to ICMR are misleading. This refers to a non peer reviewed modelling, not carried out by ICMR and does not reflect the official position of ICMR,” it said in the tweet.

The study in question here is one conducted by researchers from an Operations Research Group constituted by ICMR. The said study said that the nationwide lockdown had delayed the peaking of CoVID-19 cases by 34 to 76 days. It also found that the same lockdown had helped bring down India’s infection rate by 69 to 97 per cent, thus allowing the country to ramp up its medical infrastructure and healthcare system to deal with the imminent upsurge of cases which would be witnessed after reopening.

The study suggested that though there might arise a shortage of isolation beds, ventilators and ICU beds post November. However, the said shortage, again, had been reduced by 83 per cent due to the lockdown. “In the scenario of intensified public health measures with 60 per cent effectiveness after lockdown, the demand can be met until the first week of November. After that, isolation beds could be inadequate for 5.4 months, ICU beds for 4.6 and ventilators for 3.9 months, projections by the health researchers showed,” the study showed.

It must be mentioned here that the said study was being used by a section of media and people to suggest that the nationwide lockdown had indeed failed to deliver upon its intended purposes, as also time and again claimed by former Congress President, and future Congress President, Rahul Gandhi. As such, it became imperative for the ICMR to distance itself from the study, which was conducted by a group of researchers of the body, independently.

PIB Fact Check also called reports published in various media on the basis of the said study as ‘misleading’. “The news is misleading. The study to which the report is attributed, is not carried out by ICMR and doesn’t reflect the authentic information,” it said.

Off late, there has been a concerted campaign mounted against the Modi government by the usual culprits, with an aim to discredit the government’s decision to impose a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of Coronavirus. Of course, such people are fooling nobody.