Is Gujarat Suppressing COVID cases?

Gujarat has the 3rd highest number of COVID-19 cases in the Country with 14000 reported so far. In the last one week, 2683 cases have been detected. It is not a big number considering that Maharashtra added 17178 cases in the same period.

But the question is, are these numbers correct?

Between 17th May 2020 and 23 May 2020, Gujarat carried out 39653 Tests

Now, let us look at Karnataka, another BJP ruled State (and similar population size) which has just 2089 cases, 7 times lesser than Gujarat.

Between 17th May 2020 and 23 May 2020, Karnataka carried out 56172 Tests. In fact, the much maligned Bengal in the middle of Cyclone Amphan completed 51780 Cases.

So, Karnataka and Bengal with 7 times fewer cases are carrying out many more tests than Gujarat. Therefore, it would not surprise anybody then that Gujarat has a death to recovery ratio of 13% while Karnataka is at 6.4%.

So one thing is clear, Gujarat is not carrying out as many Tests as Karnataka or Bengal. But is it fair to say it is suppressing Cases? See this

Between 1st May and 7th May, two weeks ago, Gujarat completed 36500 Tests. Since then, Gujarat has been able to increase its testing by just 9%. In the same period, Karnataka increased its testing by 70%.

So one thing is clear, Gujarat has not scaled its tests significantly in 3 weeks. If it is intentional, that is dangerous. It it is unable to, reflects very poorly on the 25 years of BJP rule in the State.