Flattening the COVID-19 Curve - Testing

What is the issue?

The spread of COVID-19 cases does not seem to be slowing down globally and in India, and the death toll continues to rise alarmingly.
To move ahead, India needs a comprehensive approach focussed on wider testing.

What is the cases scenario globally?

After a sharp increase in March 2020, the fresh cases reported have steadily increased.
The case have breached the 10 million mark by June 2020 end.
The death toll too touched a grim milestone of 0.5 million.
With the addition of each million new cases taking fewer days than the previous one, the pandemic is truly accelerating.
June 2020 alone accounted for 60% of all cases reported so far.
The second half of June has been particularly bad with over 1,50,000 cases reported almost daily.
U.S. (2.7 million), Brazil (nearly 1.5 million) and India (0.6 million) have been driving the spike in cases.

What is the case with India?

As on 3 July 2020, India has reported over 0.6 million cases and 18,662 deaths.
The acceleration of fresh cases began in the first week of May and increased sharply in June.
While Maharashtra has the most cases, infections in Tamil Nadu and Delhi have been steadily increasing.
With over 92,000 cases, Delhi has surpassed China (nearly 85,000).
On the other hand, Mumbai (just over 82,000) and Chennai (64,000 plus) are close behind.

How important is testing?

After months of low testing, Delhi increased the number of tests done per day to close to 20,000.
Though belated, Tamil Nadu began aggressively testing in hotspot areas in Chennai weeks ago.
It moved from a smaller number of targeted tests to increased community testing about 2 weeks ago.
This has led to the test positivity rate reducing from 35% to about 20% in certain areas in Chennai.
A test positivity rate of about 20% is highly suggestive of community spread in these areas.
Certainly, testing enough helps in deciding on the level of intervention needed.
However, equally important is tracing and isolating contacts.
Fortunately, Tamil Nadu has a case fatality rate of 1.3%.
This is the lowest when compared with 4.4% in Maharashtra, 3.1% in Delhi, and 5.6% in Gujarat.

What is the way forward?

It is important for every State to learn from Maharashtra, to test large numbers daily unmindful of the rise in fresh cases each day.
Being hesitant to testing, tracing, isolating and treating will inevitably lead to uncontrolled spread and increased deaths.
China, Italy, and Spain have demonstrated that it is possible to bend the curve through a comprehensive approach that is centred around testing.
It is high time that India works on its testing strategies for similar results.

Source: The Hindu