Is Hyderabad hiding COVID cases?

India reported 10000+ new cases two days in a row and those numbers are increasing daily. Simultaneously Indians are desperately searching for COVID hospitals in the big cities. Searches which were very low in March have been going up and has hit a peak in June. Not surprisingly, the top two cities searching for this Information are Delhi and Mumbai. This is in line with news reports where hospital availability is becoming an issue.

Hyderabad, Hyderabad, what are you searching?

Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune make up for the top 8. The most intriguing in the top 8 is Hyderabad which is on par with Chennai and ahead of Pune.

High Search for Hospitals on Google: The whole of Telangana has 3000+ cases, far fewer than Pune or Chennai. So it is intriguing why Hyderabadis are searching for COVID hospitals on par with Chennai and higher than Pune?The population explains some variance but Chennai and Pune have 3-7 times more cases than Hyderabad, so it is not about population. People usually search for such information when they have some symptoms.

Less testing: Add this with the testing information from Telangana and there is more evidence that something is amiss in Telangana. While exact testing numbers are not available, it is unlikely to have crossed 60000, far lesser than most States in India. Andhra has done 7 times more tests though the population is not even two times higher.

Death Rate. Telangana has the same health infrastructure as Andhra Pradesh (or atleast had it 5 years ago) and in fact better than most Southern States owing to Aarogyasree (Health Insurance Plan for Poor) implemented 14 years ago. And yet it reports the highest death to case ratio in the South. Typically States can hide COVID cases better than COVID deaths. States with high COVID deaths tend to test less or slowdown Testing.

The Centre has already cautioned Telangana, so far the improvement has been marginal. The State has already lost 55 people in June, It lost 54 people in the whole of May. Hopefully things get better!