Coronavirus: Upscale testing brings down positivity rate

Hyderabad: New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Telangana are showing a common trend as far as positivity rate in Covid cases is concerned.

The cases hit their peak in these areas a few weeks ago and now the graph is showing decline, an encouraging scenario, though these cities are not out of the woods yet.

Much of this has to do with increased testing capacities that are yielding good results. Even WHO is advocating the 3Ts formula (Test-Trace-Treat) so that community transmission does not occur. The four different stages in positive cases from sporadic cases stage to outbreak cases stage to localised clusters stage to finally the community transmission stage depends on how effectively the 3Ts are being implemented. It may be mentioned here that WHO cited the example of South Korea and Dharavi slums of Mumbai which contained the virus spread and ensured it did not go out of control. Looking at the Telangana situation, the positivity rate that once touched 37 percent on June 29 (975 positive cases from 2648 tests) has come down drastically and was just 8.48 percent on July 21 (1430 positive cases from 16855 tests). The testing capacity from that day increased by 600 percent, which meant that the positivity rate fell by 77 percent.

Similar trend was seen in Delhi as well. On June 13, Delhi reported 2134 positive cases from 5776 tests (positivity rate of 36.9 percent) but on July 21 only 1349 cases were reported, but the number of tests done were very high (20852). Take the case of another southern state-Tamil Nadu that is majorly impacted with covid-19. On June 28, over 26,000 tests were conducted in which 3940 tested positive and once the testing numbers touched over 40,000 on July 21 the infected cases number fell to 1142.

Dr Kiran Madhala, HoD (Anesthesia), Government Medical College, Nizamabad, says contract tracing is the key for every country.

It can prevent individual cases from becoming clusters and clusters turning into community transmission. We can stop transmission with strong leadership, community engagement and comprehensive strategy, he said.

Dr E Kishore, MD (Pediatrics) and Associate Professor, Narayana Medical College, Nellore stressed that once community transmission occurs the positivity rate and cases rate increases and so does the number of deaths. Fortunately due to increased testing capacities and state governments measures and public cooperation, the situation has not gone out of control, he said.