Indore: It's better late than never.
After repeated complaints that not enough testing was being done, the district administration and health department have increased sample testing of Covid-19 patients in the city and fortunately, the reports are encouraging.
In the last few days, the health department has almost doubled the number of samples being tested and fortunately the rate of positivity has dropped to half.
Earlier, the number of samples being tested was around 2000-2500 samples and rate of positivity was over 10 per cent - fluctuating between 10 and 14 per cent- and at one point it had increased to 19 per cent in the beginning of this month.
For example, on October 20, the number of samples tested was 2,467 and the rate of positivity was 10.57 per cent.
Surprisingly, the positivity rate dropped to half the very next day when 4,774 samples were tested and the rate of positivity was 5.07 per cent with only 242 positive patients found.
The lowest number of positive cases in the last two months was found on October 18 and only 181 patients were found positive. However, the rate of positive patients was 8.07 per cent.
"Increased sampling and testing is an attempt to know the exact positive rate in city and prevalence of the disease," Nodal officer for Covid-19 Dr Amit Malakar said.
He added that they about 141 teams are on the field and sample testing has been intensified.
"We are now focusing on quick sampling and quick results to contain the spread of virus at the earliest due to which we are testing people more through Rapid Antigen Test and serious ones are tested through RTPCR," Dr Malakar added.
Meanwhile, contact tracing in-charge Dr Anil Dongre said, "Increased testing will ultimately help in decreasing the positive rate as it will help in diagnosing and containing the virus."
Rate of positivity in last 10 days
Date- samples tested- samples positivity- rate of positive
October 23- 5477- 271- 4.95
October 22- 5226- 251- 4.8
October 21- 4774- 242- 5.07
October 20- 2467- 260- 10.54
October 19- 1797- 226- 12.68
October 18- 2080- 181- 8.7
October 17- 2328- 215- 9.26
