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Authorities in Mumbai have conducted 212,000 Covid-19 tests, using a positivity amount of 20.40%.
The actual figure of 20.40% marks a sharp rise in the 11.6% recorded on May 13, and 16.5% on May 21. On May 6, roughly a month ago, the positivity percentage stood at 10%, according to data available with Hindustan Times.
Ashwini Bhide, additional municipal commissioner in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), tweeted on Thursday night, “Almost 19 private labs are already involved with testing by @mybmc. That may be how Mumbai has done 2.12 lakh tests to date that makes it 16,304 tests per million population, highest in India.”
The high number of positivity is now being attributed to targeted testing and early identification of suspected Covid-19 cases.
A senior civic officer said, “It signifies that we are targeting the proper pool of people. And also this means we can remove them in the community in the perfect time due to early identification. Our contact tracing efforts have already been fruitful.”
BMC has traced a total of 845,000 contacts, of whom 192,000 were high risk contacts, as of June 3. While 352,000 are home based quarantine, 27,891 have been in BMC’s institutional quarantine facilities.
Mumbai had conducted 127,000 tests, when the number of Covid-19 patients in the city was 14,781, as of May 13. As of May 21, Mumbai had conducted 153,000 tests, and the number of Covid-19 cases in the city was 25,317.
