Mumbai: The number of Covid-19 tests conducted every day in Mumbai fell 10,000-15,000 in the last few days after the center directives to stop testing people without symptoms.
On January 7, the BMC Covid update showed that one of the highest number of tests – 72,442 – was carried out in the city.
On Friday, the appropriate amount is 54,924 tests.
Until the omicron wave began on December 21-22, the daily test score of the city was around 35,000, but the exponential increase in cases forced the authorities more than double the volume of tests.
However, with the Ministry of Health advises to test people without symptoms, BMC must revise its strategy.
An official of the Senior BMC Public Health Department said, “We have been told not to test people at the train station and market, but we plan to collect several random samples to explore the virus.” The plan, the official said, was doing around 60,000 tests a day.
“Mumbai is too crowded a city to test people.
Asimptomatic people can still infect many others, therefore it is important for this person to remain in isolation or quarantine house,” said a senior official.
Civil health officials said the covid test level of testing has declined in Mumbai – from 28% on Sunday to 20.6% on Friday.
“The leading level of testing can increase now that we will focus on symptomatic people who may be all positive tests,” the official said.
At present, the daily peposititivity level for quick antigen tests fell to 5% due to 30% for RT-PCR.
“The RT-PCR front level has increased to 72.4% last week, but also dropped more than half,” said a doctor.
Even home testing rates are around 4%.
More than 1 lakh people have reported their home testing reports to BMC so far.
“The home test is 900 on January 1, but their number has increased to more than 2,000 now,” said citizenship officials.