Adding District-level Testing from the MoHFW Excel File

[AkhilK28]

Dear COVID-19 API,

First off, thank you for providing this excellent database for COVID-19 data for India. Recently the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare started releasing weekly district-level testing data on their website: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/.

The direct download of this file is here:10percentDistrictWiseCOVID19Positivity14thMay.xlsx

Our research team at the Geographic Insights Lab (https://geographicinsights.iq.harvard.edu/) is using the latest weekly numbers but we would love to see a time series of testing at the district level so our team was wondering if you will be willing to add this district-level testing data to your API as a time series file so we can see trends over time. Our lab has already reverse-engineered the actual tests given from the test positivity rate in this Excel file and have also matched this data with your district key that is provided in your CSV API files.

If you would like us to send the match file please let us know! You can reach me via email by replying to this issue.

Thank you!

Edit: I have also attached the Excel file that I downloaded from this link last week. They started releasing this data last week but it was only for when test positivity was >20% but just recently they changed it to >10% so even more districts are included! They update this every day but only show it for the last week. For example, on May 15th they will release a file that goes from 8th may to 14th may, etc. Here is the file that was for >20% between 30th April to 6th May. 20DistrictWiseCOVID19Positivity7thMay.xlsx

[aatishb]

Hi, I am parsing & archiving the district-level data in a separate repository: https://github.com/aatishb/indiatestpositivitydata

[aatishb]

@AkhilK28 Could I get in touch with someone at your lab about your work on this data? It would be great to share resources / ideas on this if possible. Also if you have the timepoints that I'm missing I'd love to fill these in. My email address is on my website or let me know where I can reach out. Thanks!

[AkhilK28]

@aatishb Thank you for the data link and your response! We will actually only use the latest data that will be updated daily from your GitHub on our new COVID-19 Vaccine Portal webpage linked here: https://geographicinsights.iq.harvard.edu/IndiaVaccine (would recommend accessing from your desktop)

We will add the test positivity metric you have in addition to calculating the total tests conducted in the 1 week time period at the district level.

We will attribute you and your data source in the "data sources" drop down on our webpage!

We couldn't find this data anywhere else but your repository looks great!

Let me know if you have any questions! Happy to help 😄

[aatishb]

Glad I could help, and appreciate the attribution! I didn't realize that the number of cases are available at district level, that is good to know!

[aatishb]

Also if you don't mind sharing the mapping between district names on the MOHFW excel file and covid19india district names, that would save me some effort, thanks! Happy to attribute your input on this.