India has scaled a historic peak in the fight against COVID-19. In a landmark achievement, for the first time, a record of very high number of nearly 15 lakh COVID tests has been conducted in a single day.

With 14,92,409 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the cumulative tests have touched nearly 7 crore (6,89,28,440).

This exponential surge in the daily testing capacities strongly demonstrates the determined escalation of the testing infrastructure in the country.

The last one crore tests were conducted in merely 9 days.

The Tests Per Million (TPM) stand at 49,948 as of today.  

Evidence has revealed that higher numbers of testing subsequently leads to lowered positivity rate. States that are testing the highest numbers are also reporting a gradual decline in the positivity rate.

The national cumulative positivity rate stands at 8.44% today.

With the expansion of testing infrastructure, the daily testing by States/UTs has also increased. 23 States/UTs have better tests per million than the national average (49,948).

As reiterated by the Prime Minister, as he reviewed the status and preparedness of 7 States/UTs  with high burden of caseload recently, testing forms an integral pillar of COVID response and management. The Centre’s three-pronged strategy of ‘TEST TRACK TREAT’ begins with testing. CHASE THE VIRUS approach of the Union Government aims to catch every missing person through testing to curb spread of the infection. Several measures have been taken by the Union Government through calibrated steps to widen the testing net and ensure easier and more accessible testing by all across the country. States/UTs have been empowered with flexibility to ensure higher testing. They have been advised that all symptomatic negatives of Rapid Antigen Tests are mandatorily subjected to RT-PCR.

Expanded diagnostic lab network has given a sharp boost to the enhanced testing numbers.

The testing network has grown to 1818 labs today, including 1084 labs in the government sector and 734 private labs. These include:

• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 923 (Govt: 478 + Private: 445)

• TrueNat based testing labs: 769 (Govt: 572 + Private: 197)

• CBNAAT based testing labs: 126 (Govt: 34 + Private: 92)

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MV/SJ

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