John Hopkins University Lists India Under “Rotten Apples”

John Hopkins University which has been on the vanguard of tracking and forecasting global Covid19 data recently updated its tracker with some controversial data. According to its statistics, India had been positioned 3^rd in global corona rankings just behind USA and Brazil with a staggering count of over 5 lakh confirmed Covid cases. The data, which was baseless, was rectified later on when people started questioning the authenticity of it on social media platforms.

Steve Hanke, a chief faculty at the University and an esteemed economist, came out and openly denigrated India for ‘either not reporting Covid data or reporting highly suspicious data’. He termed India as a “Rotten Apple” along with 6 other countries - Venezuela, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, China and Vietnam. Turkey and India happen to be only 2 democracies in the list.

Although the Indian government has been releasing Covid updates on a daily basis, Professor Hanke feels like the data is incorrect and highly suspicious. He emphasizes that India’s Covid situation is ‘spiraling into chaos’ and that soon India may have an Italy like situation. In terms of total number of cases, India currently stands at the 4^th position with more than 3.4 lakh cases. The number of recovered cases have surpassed the number of active cases by quite a margin.