PUNE: Bad weather brought down Covid testing in 10 to 12 districts, mainly in western Maharashtra and the Konkan region, and went on to affect their overall weekly positivity rates, officials from the public health department said on Thursday.
Solapur, for example, collected 49,580 samples for testing this week. Last week, it had collected 95,590. "Solapur's weekly positivity rate now is 6.8%, compared to 3.6% it had the week before," a health official said.
Officials said testing was "definitely" impacted in districts that experienced heavy showers and flooding recently. Kolhapur, among the worst-hit, carried out 60,083 tests, compared to the 1,19,236 it had done last week.
The situation is expected to improve. "Flood waters are receding. All labs have now been asked to ramp up testing again," an official with the public health department said.
Due to the low testing and the resultant rise in positivity rates, some of the regions (including Solapur and Beed) were also flagged as districts of concern. But officials explained the high positivity rates were actually the result of low sample collection, due to bad weather.
“Certain areas of Pandharpur and Malshiras [both in Solapur] had some active cases, but the district has not been on the radar for the last one month. We have been maintaining a WPR of 3.5%-3.8%. This week it has risen to 6.8%," an official said, adding that only about 5,000 to 6,000 tests were conducted there due to the heavy rain. Plans are now on to increase the number to 12,000 tests.
Officials from the Pune divisional commissioner's office said heavy rain has also affected contact tracing, with much of the surveillance now relying on random testing.
"Overall testing has dipped across Pune division, which is worrying. But overall positivity in districts in western Maharashtra has come down, as noticed in northern Maharashtra," a senior official said.
The Centre has already issued a letter to all states to adopt the strategy of test, track, treat and vaccinate. It has also called for strict adherence to Covid precautions.
"We have directed all districts to ramp up testing as the tests per million number is low in 26 districts, compared to the state average. The tests per million for the week in the state was 3.65 lakh and only nine districts have registered more than that number," an official said.
