Maharashtra must follow in Delhi’s footsteps and conduct more testing for Covid-19: Devendra Fadnavis

Leader of Opposition in Assembly Devendra Fadnavis said that the consistent low testing figures led to high case positivity as well as fatality rates in the state as well as in Mumbai. Pointing to the Delhi model, the former chief minister, also said that after Union home minister Amit Shah intervened in the Covid-19 situation, increased testing in the national capital brought down the case positivity rate from as high as 30-35% to 6%.

“Time and again, I have been continuously requesting to increase Covid-19 testing in Mumbai. There is no alternate way to tackle Covid-19 by reducing tests. We need to test and trace more to prevent the spread of the virus,” said Fadnavis.

“What have we lost and what have we gained due to very low Covid-19 testing? The infection rate in Maharashtra was around 6-7% in the beginning, then at 17-18% on June 8, and now stands at 23-24%. Mumbai’s infection rate stands between 21% and 27%, and we are testing very less tests in Mumbai,” he said, adding that the average daily tests in Mumbai from July 1 to 19 stood around 5,500.

After civic commissioner Iqbal Chahal liberalised the testing protocol, any citizen can undergo a Covid-19 test even without a prescription. However, the average number of testing in Mumbai has not increased significantly despite this step. The maximum per day tests from June 15 to July 15 were conducted on July 15 (7,070 tests).

As far as the state is concerned, the testing has been ramped up from this month, with an average of 31,442 tests conducted from July 1 to 19. The maximum tests (41,565) in the state were conducted on July 19.

BMC officials, however, refuted this claim by Fadnavis without contradicting the figures.

A senior civic official pointed out that a majority of Delhi’s test numbers come from antigen testing, even as the national capital conducted fewer reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests. RT-PCR is seen as the gold standard for Covid-19 testing, unlike antigen tests, which can be conducted easily, but result in more false negatives.

“Mumbai continues to be the city that is conducting the most number of RT-PCR tests. Our average has increased but to increase RT-PCR testing by more than double, for instance, would require serious ramping up of testing infrastructure. We will need 50 labs to test instead of just 27 and this will cost more funds and time, at least three more months,” said the civic official.

He also pointed out that the city was now getting more than 80-85% asymptomatic Covid-19 patients and hence, increasing testing would not really have any impact on tackling the outbreak.