DESPITE INCREASE IN CASES, TESTING MISSES ITS TARGET IN PUNJAB

AMRITSAR: With no end in sight to the pandemic and no sign of cases going down, increased testing is seen a way to ensure that some of the population, at least, can be spared the covid-19 disease.

Punjab, however, has failed to meet its target of conducting 12,000 tests per day for the past fortnight that started July 25 by a margin of 25% or around 43,000 tests (1.25 lakh tests done against targeted 1.68 lakh). The target was set after the state hiked the testing capacity in its government institutions from 9,000 to 12,000 tests per day. On Friday, the state added 12,168 samples tested, the highest single-day testing.

As per the state’s media bulletin, Punjab reported 9,246 fresh cases, 5,743 recoveries and 248 fatalities due to the virus over the past two weeks.

State covid-19 nodal officer Dr Rajesh Bhaskar said: “We are continuously directing district officers to increase daily sample collection. We have conducted more than 6 lakh covid-19 tests in the state and have to keep in mind out capacity. The daily samples being tested are increasing everyday.”

“The state has limited staff to collect swab samples, as most employees remain busy in contract tracing. Not every health official is trained in sample collection and conducting rapid antigen tests. Most samples are being collected from Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar, and these are the traced contacts of the patients. Some people are still reluctant to get tested. Others think their family members will also be taken to hospital, if they are found positive,” said a health official, on the condition of anonymity.

Officials added that four new testing labs had been set up at Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali with a capacity of 250 per day to begin with, and it would be raised to 1,000 per day by August-end.