The Assam government is eyeing to conduct one lakh coronavirus tests every day from August 12 and 60,000 per million tests by the end of the month, state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The remark came at a time when the state, despite logging a fall in the positivity rate and registering one of the lowest mortality rates, has been reporting about 2,000 cases on an average for a fortnight.
"Our whole idea is to complete a sizeable number of test per million, nearly 60,000 by the end of the August. This will give us enough headway to segregate the positive cases from within the community and hence help us in curbing the spread of the coronavirus... The positivity rate has gone down. Earlier, it was 2,000 cases out of 14,000 samples collected, now it is 2,000 out of 60,000," Mr Sarma told NDTV.
Assam has so far conducted close to 14 lakh COVID-19 tests. It is testing more than 60,000 people a day for the past one week.
"We are aiming to convert this to an absolute number and the only way to achieve this is by testing more... This will give us an indication in terms of data. Whether COVID-19 is surging or there is a scope of flattening the curve," Mr Sarma added.
On Monday, Assam witnessed yet another single day spike with 2,900 fresh cases. The state has logged over 60,000 cases and 20,000 of them are active. There have been more than 150 COVID-19 deaths in Assam.
The state has third lowest mortality rate in the country at 0.24 per cent and a recovery rate of above 70 per cent.
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