Keeping to its promise of exponentially increasing the daily COVID-19 tests to 10 lakhs, India has crossed the significant milestone in its fight against COVID today.

In a testament to the determined, focussed, consistent and coordinated efforts of the Centre and the State/UT governments, India has conducted 1 million tests in the past 24 hours. With 10,23,836 tests done yesterday, India has achieved its resolve to test 10 lakh samples daily.

With this achievement, the cumulative tests are more than 3.4 crore (3,44,91,073).

The number of daily tests has been increasing in a steep climb. Average daily tests during the past three weeks also strongly depict the progress made in enhancement of COVID-19 tests across the country.

As has been reported from States/UTs that have pushed ahead with aggressive testing, there is a commensurate decline in the positivity rate. Although higher number of tests will initially lead to a rise in the positivity rate, it will eventually lower when combined with other measures such as prompt isolation, efficient tracking, and timely effective and clinical management.

Combined with enhanced testing, policy decisions of the Centre and the States/UTs have facilitated easy testing across the country. This has boosted the daily testing capacity.

Enhanced diagnostic lab network has also sided in this achievement. Today, the country has a strong network of 1511 labs comprising 983 labs in the government sector and 528 private labs. These include:

• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 778 (Govt: 458 + Private: 320)

• TrueNat based testing labs: 615 (Govt: 491 + Private: 124)

• CBNAAT based testing labs: 118 (Govt: 34 + Private: 84)

For all authentic & updated information on COVID-19 related technical issues, guidelines & advisories please regularly visit: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/ and @MoHFW_INDIA.

Technical queries related to COVID-19 may be sent to technicalquery.covid19[at]gov[dot]in and other queries on ncov2019[at]gov[dot]in and @CovidIndiaSeva .

In case of any queries on COVID-19, please call at the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare helpline no.: +91-11-23978046 or 1075 (Toll-free). List of helpline numbers of States/UTs on COVID-19 is also available at https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/coronvavirushelplinenumber.pdf .

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MV/SJ

HFW/COVID Updates/22Aug2020/2