Scientists appeal to PM to make Covid data public April 29, 2021 × They said it is critically important to ascertain the medical needs of the country in fighting the pandemic A section of scientists in the country, on Thursday, impressed upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the need to make public the Covid-19 data that is being gathered by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) since last year. They said a deep dive into this data by experts is critically important to ascertain the medical needs of the country in fighting the pandemic. In an open appeal to Modi, the scientists said the community needs to have a wider access to the granular testing data that ICMR has been collating since the beginning of the pandemic. “The ICMR database is inaccessible to anyone outside of the government and perhaps also to many within the government. Most scientists – including several identified by DST (Department of Science and Technology) and NITI Aayog to develop new prediction models for India – do not have access to these data,” said the scientists who signed the appeal.