The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has reportedly increased COVID-19 testing by 50 per cent over the past 10 days. The civic body said that it conducted the highest number of single-day tests on November 25 with 19,018 tests said to be conducted on the day. Of these tests, 10,500 were rapid antigen tests whereas 8,518 were RT-PCR tests. The city has conducted a total of 18,71,125 COVID-19 tests since the pandemic began.
It’s worth mentioning that the number of daily tests had fallen to just 4,000 per day between November 14 to 16. However, civic authorities have predicted an increase in cases as lockdown restrictions have been lifted to a great extent. Officials believe that the testing could be ramped up further in the days to come.
Also read - More Than One Crore COVID-19 Tests Have Been Conducted In Maharashtra
“We are trying to plug all gaps to check the spread of Covid-19 in the community, especially as public interaction at the community level has increased greatly due to the festival season, and unlocking of the state,” Additional Municipal Commissioner of the BMC, Suresh Kakani said.
As reported recently, BMC is also partnering with railway and airport authorities to conduct tests for passengers arriving from outside Maharashtra. Civic officials are also looking to test people in locations and households that were found shut or closed during the lockdown. The focus appears to be on increasing testing in crowded places while BEST bus drivers and conductors are also seeing increased testing.
Read - Long Queues At Railway Stations For Screening On Day 1; 10 Passengers Tested Positive
“Considering the economic background of vegetable vendors and hawkers in markets, they are likely to take BEST buses. The bus conductors come in contact with a large number of people daily, hence, we want to ensure we tap positive persons in time and isolate them from the community by quarantining them on time,” Kakani said.
He added that if patients test negative for COVID-19 via rapid antigen testing and are still showing symptoms, they will be tested using the RT-PCR method.
Authorities maintained that overall positivity rate has fluctuated between 6 to 8 per cent which is significantly lower than the average. This is mostly due to the increase in rapid antigen tests conducted daily, officials said.
It’s worth noting that rapid tests have a lower accuracy as compared to RT-PCR tests. However, rapid antigen tests can offer the result in around 30 minutes, while results from RT-PCR tests can take a few hours. Data shows that RT-PCR tests have a positivity rate of 10 to 12 per cent whereas rapid tests have a lower positivity rate of 3 to 4 per cent.
Also read - BMC To Test Traders, Hawkers And Businessmen
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