The Centre has has asked States and Union Territories to proactively engage with the private healthcare providers to facilitate enhanced bed availability and critical health care facilities. The Health Ministry said that States have also been asked to ensure fair and transparent charges for the services being provided. Some states like Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have already taken the initiative. These states have negotiated and reached an agreement with the private sector on reasonable rates and arrangements to provide critical care for COVID-19. The Ministry said, the country now has the capacity to test 3 lakh samples per day. The total number of samples tested thus so far is nearly sixty lakhs with one lakh 54 thousand 935 samples tested in the last 24 hours. Media reports, testing capacity is continuously being ramped up. A network of 907 labs has been created so far in the country to test COVID-19 samples. This includes 659 labs in the government sector and 248 in private . In order to enhance the testing capacity in the national capital , each of the 11 Districts of Delhi will now have assigned labs for exclusively testing the samples from these districts. The samples from each district are being sent to these labs to ensure timely testing and getting the results without any delay. Currently there are 42 labs are functional in Delhi with per day testing capacity of around 17 thousand samples. In its endeavour to make testing more affordable and increase the volume of testing , ICMR has also recommended the use of rapid antigen test kits for diagnosis of COVID-19 in containment zones and healthcare settings under strict medical supervision.
