On Saturday, Karnataka Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar announced that the state has surpassed the landmark figure of 1 lakh COVID-19 tests since March 8th. The first case in the state was recorded on the 8th of March.
According to the state health department bulletin, Karnataka has so far tested 1,07,311 samples. 5,068 samples were tested on Saturday alone. With Karnataka reaching the landmark figure, here’s how it is faring up with other states.
Among the neighboring states, Telangana has not yet disclosed any statistics on the number of tests conducted. Kerala has conducted a lesser number of tests i.e. 36,648 tests. Tamil Nadu has conducted almost twice the number of tests than Karnataka with testing 2,29,670 samples. Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh also have tested more samples with 2,27,804 and 1,65,069 respectively. As per the experts, the tests conducted should be seen with respect to the number of population in the state. On this regard, the state nodal officer Dr. CN Manjunath said,
“Random testing has to be done both in containment zones and also green zones. If we can do a substantial number of random tests in green zones and if they come back negative, then we can open up those areas fully. Otherwise, if there are random tests in which results come back as positive, it might suggest that community transmission has taken place. So there is no alternative to testing a significant part of the population. Considering all this, we are not doing bad and we will significantly improve by month-end.”
Comparison with other states
Among the states having a population of 1 crore or more, Karnataka is the 8th place when it comes to the number of tests conducted per million. The National Capital Region of New Delhi fares the best with 5027 tests per million population. Andhra Pradesh is at 3300 per million, Jammu and Kashmir with 2495 per million, Tamil Nadu with 2423 per million, Rajasthan with 1967, Maharashtra with 1870, Gujarat with 1816 while Karnataka is at 1687 tests per million. The national average is 1263 per million.
The state has been looking forward to spike up the number of daily tests. The current highest is 5168 tests which were conducted on the 3rd of May. The state aims to conduct at least 10,000 tests per day by the end of May. Dr. Ravi, a virologist in the Bengaluru’s Nimhans, said that,
“There is no shortage of test kits and the government is in the process of acquiring more test kits so that we can reach the 10,000 mark on a daily basis. Also, in terms of labs, we have a high number so there is no shortage of capacity. Along with the private labs, we have a total of 62 testing centers”
Source: The News Minute
