The Health Department undertook a massive exercise on Sunday, wherein 3,000 nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swabs were collected randomly from all districts from amongst the general population for COVID-19 testing using RT-PCR.
The objective was to detect any hitherto undetected COVID-19 positivity amongst the general population. This sample survey is apart from the routine PCR samples done by the State.
While 15% each of the samples were collected from primary contacts of confirmed cases, health workers in non-COVID hospital and other health-care workers and field-level health workers, 10% samples each were collected from the elderly, inter-State travellers, pregnant women and other frontline workers. Five percent each were collected from quarantine persons with co-morbidities above 30 years, secondary contacts of confirmed cases and contacts of travellers in quarantine.