'UP model of Covid control': Uttar Pradesh govt takes out full-page advertorial in TOI Lucknow

"A hit for Covid management", "big push vaccination drive", "free treatment": This is what Lucknow readers of the Times of India woke up to this morning. An entire page of the newspaper was dedicated to the "Uttar Pradesh model of Covid control", singing paeans to how the Adityanath government has handled the pandemic.

Discerning readers would notice, of course, the words "consumer connect initiative" at the bottom of the page, indicating that it's an advertorial taken out by the Uttar Pradesh government. All five "news reports", however, carry the bylines of Times of India reporters: Aditi Guha, Imreen Farhatali, Sana Fahim, and Neha Arora.

The "reports" on the page included how the state government "tackled the bull by its horns" so that its "tactical approach of handling the Covid-19 crisis has drastically improved the pandemic situation". According to whom, you ask? According to "state government officials", that's who.

Another piece explained how "micro-planning, early detection and proper treatment" helped Uttar Pradesh "flatten the Covid-19 curve in four weeks".

“Despite suffering from Covid himself, the impact of CM Yogi landing on ground zero has resulted in a steady decline in infection,” the piece declared.

What the reports failed to mention is that 2,000 bodies have been found floating or buried along a 1,140-km stretch of the Ganga, as reported by Dainik Bhaskar. "Uncountable" corpses were found in Uttar Pradesh.

Hospitals in Uttar Pradesh have also struggled to maintain an uninterrupted supply of oxygen. This while its crematoriums overflow.

In Meerut alone, the actual death toll is seven times higher than the official death toll. Check out Newslaundry's ground reports from Uttar Pradesh here.