Delhi conducting three times more COVID tests than required by ICMR: Satyendar Jain

Jain welcomed the change in guidelines by the ICMR that said that anyone who has come in contact with a COVID-infected patient does not necessarily need to take the COVID-19 test unless the person is in the 'high-risk' category based on age or comorbidities.

New Delhi:Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that the government is conducting three times more COVID-19 testing than required by the Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines and informed that the city is likely to report nearly 17,000 new COVID-19 cases today.

Addressing a press conference here, Jain said, "2,600 beds are occupied at the moment. Almost 13,000 beds are vacant in the hospitals of Delhi. In comparison with the day before yesterday, the number of cases yesterday were lesser. There should be nearly 17,000 cases based on the data that we are compiling. We are conducting 3 times more tests than required by the ICMR guidelines."

Asked about the number of COVID-19 testing in the entire city, the Health Minister said that nearly 60,000 to 1 lakh tests are being conducted every day for the past one month. "There were about 67,000 tests conducted yesterday. I want to make it clear that less testing does not mean less number of cases. Mild, asymptomatic, or high-risk contact cases, everyone gets tested. Nearly 60,000 to 1 lakh tests are being conducted on a daily basis for the past one month," he said.

Jain welcomed the change in guidelines by the ICMR that said that anyone who has come in contact with a COVID-infected patient does not necessarily need to take the COVID-19 test unless the person is in the 'high-risk' category based on age or comorbidities. He said the people who are sick are all being tested. "The ICMR guidelines are fine. Those who are sick, all are being tested," he said.

The Health Minister further informed that the admissions in the hospitals are stagnant and expected that the positivity rate will start declining with time. "When the admissions in the hospitals are stagnant, the positivity will start declining with time. The positivity rate will reduce with time as patients admitted to hospitals are stagnant. Most of the deaths were due to comorbidities," he said.

Meanwhile, Delhi recorded a dip in new COVID-19 cases for the second consecutive day on Saturday with 20,718 fresh infections cases being reported in the national capital at a positivity rate of 30.64 per cent which is the highest after May 1 last year. As many as 67,624 tests including 54,141 RTPCR/CBNAAT/Tue NAT and 13,483 rapid antigen tests were conducted on January 15. The decline in the COVID-19 cases coincides with the dip number of tests in the past two days.

When Delhi, on January 13 this year, reported 28,867 new cases, the highest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic, 98,832 tests were conducted. A day later on January 14, as many as 79,578 tests were done in which 24,383 samples were detected COVID-19 positive. India recorded 2,71,202 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday. The daily positivity rate is at 16.28 per cent.

(ANI)