Team Herald
MARGAO: The Goa Forward Party (GFP) on Saturday said that the suspicions the party raised of the State government’s disastrous COVID-response have been vindicated by the researchers of the prestigious Stanford University of USA.
Party Chief Vijai Sardesai reminded that for months, the GFP had bemoaned the lack of priority, seriousness, transparency and an effective plan to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in Goa.
“At various times, our genuine public health concerns were dismissed by many, including by a section of the media, as mere ‘politicking’. Many of the things we said three months back, however, are now coming to haunt the State government such as the lack of synergy between the political executive, the bureaucracy and the medical experts; their lack of medical preparedness with the required critical infrastructure, the dismal status of the testing capacity in the State, the unfolding quarantine scams, etc,” claimed Vijai.
“Now our concern of lack of transparency leading to a lack of an effective response to the pandemic by the government machinery led by Dr Pramod Sawant is proved by the researchers from Stanford University. In a study conducted in the latter half of May 2020 of the quality of COVID-19 data reporting by various States and UTs in India, Goa has scored a poor 0.21, even below the median value of 0.26, on a scale of 0 to 1,” mocked Vijai.
According to the authors of this study, reporting relevant data in a timely, transparent, and accessible manner is crucial during a pandemic. The advantages of such timely reporting are two-fold: First, it fosters trust between the government and the public and, thereby ensures public cooperation. Second, it enables the scientific community to rapidly and continually study the reported data to gain insights and propose better containment measures and policies.
“The poor COVID-19 Data Reporting Score (CDRS) of Goa is a vindication of our charge of lack of transparency, coherency and effectiveness in the government’s fight against the pandemic. The government, on the contrary, has shown extraordinary ability and effectiveness in fighting any of its just critics or Opposition, rather than the pandemic,” alleged Vijai.
Goa Forward Party has reiterated its earlier demand that the COVID-19 response in Goa be led by a team of independent and indigenous medical and scientific experts rather than by half-baked politicians and bureaucrats.
“We hope at least now the BJP government will shed its ‘cloak-and-dagger’ operation involving intrigue, secrecy, mystery and spin of numbers and narrative in its COVID-response and be transparent before the Goan public and the political class and thus gain their much needed trust and cooperation in our common fight against the pandemic,” said Vijai.
