India is continuously stepping up it’s COVID testing capacity. In the last 24 hours, more than 8 lakh 20 thousand samples were tested taking the cumulative testing numbers till date to over 3 crore 76 lakh 51 thousand. The positivity rate continues to record decline despite increased testing and stands at a weekly average of around 8 per cent of the total samples tested. Tests done per million of the population in the country has also scaled new peak of being over 26 thousand. The Union Health Ministry informed that the remarkable feat has been achieved by rigorously following the “Test, Track and Treat” strategy. ICMR said that the indigenous production of testing kits in the country has brought down the cost incurred on single RT-PCR test from around 2 thousand rupees to nearly 300 rupees. The week-wise average daily tests conducted has also witnessed a sharp increase from around 2.3 lakh in the first week of July 2020 to over 8 lakh in the current week. Government said that the strong determinant of this milestone has been a sustained expansion of testing labs across the country. From merely one lab in January this year, the country today has 1 thousand 540 labs. Out of these, 92 are government labs while the remaining 548 are private.
