While the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) is taking several measures to contain the spread of coronavirus in the city, the positivity rate of COVID-19 has been rather alarming. The overall test-positivity rate stands at around 31%. The city is witnessing aproximately 300 positive cases every day.
As per the data available with the NMMC till July 30, the civic body has already conducted 33,916 COVID-19 tests including 13,991 Rapid Antigen test. Of these, 14,987 were found to be positive with an overall rate of 31.28%.
However, a senior civic official informed that the test-positivity rate on a per day basis is between 10 to 15%.
The data shared by the civic body reveals that about a month ago, the city was seeing around 150 to 180 positive cases every day. This has nearly doubled now, with Navi Mumbai seeing around 300 to 350 positive cases per day.
Civic chief Abhijit Bangar has told The Free Press Journal in an exclusive interview that the high test-positivity rate is a matter of concern to the civic body.
According to a senior civic official, the rise in positive cases is due to the increased testing and the availability of immediate results.
“We started using the Rapid Antigen test from July 16 aggressively to reach the maximum number of coronavirus infected people,” said the official.
He added that the NMMC had already conducted 14,987 tests with the Rapid Antigen test kit.
“At present, we are conducting around 2,000 Rapid Antigen tests per day which is a record. People need not worry with the rise in cases,” said the official.
Earlier, more than 1000 test reports were awaited at a time. This has come down to 200-300 per day now.
“Since we are getting reports immediately after the tests are conducted, whoever is found to have tested positive...it is being noted on the same day in the daily report. Pending tests reports are very low now,” said the official.
He added that earlier pending positive cases were reported in the later stage and officials had remained clueless until the reports came.
“Now, we are in a better position as we get test reports as early as possible and able to trace and isolate infected persons, bringing down the possibility of the virus spreading,” added the official.
