Why is Delhi testing lesser number of people for Covid-19?
New Delhi, 27th April: Delhi, the city which conducted over a lakh Covid tests on as recent as April 13, crushed to 57,690 Covid tests on April 26 within a span of just around two weeks.
The most worrying thing is that the number of RT-PCR tests, considered as the gold standard in testing, has fallen sharply from an average of around 64,000 per day to an average of around 45,000 per day over the past 6 days.
The media reports have attributed this drop in testing number to the challenges that testing centers are facing, including shortage of manpower, infection among of staff and backlog of cases.
The shortage of manpower at testing centers has been been caused due to many of their own staff members testing Covid positive. So, the labs are now left with no option but to minimize home collection and urge people to come to the lab to get tested as there aren’t enough people to collect samples.
Another reason for dip in testing is that the labs have become careful with how much samples they are collecting, as Delhi govt recently ordered them to produce the test results within 24 hours.
The major reason for lower testing, however, is the backlog that testing labs need to clear off. Some private testing labs had picked up more samples than their capacity and they are now failing to produce the results on time. Though according to the experts, the sample collection should pick up again this week, as it would not take a long time for labs to clear this backlog.
On Monday, the Delhi High Court, requested the state government to have more testing centers and to upgrade the infrastructure for collection of RT-PCR tests.
