In the wake of rising cases, the Gujarat government modified its policy on Friday to freely allow anyone to go for COVID-19 testing without a prescription from a doctor.
Earlier this week, the State government had reduced the rate for RT-PCR test for the virus at private laboratories from ₹1500 to ₹800.
Under the new guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), people can get themselves tested at designated laboratories without any prescription or recommendation from a doctor, which was compulsory earlier for RT-PCR tests.
In fact, private doctors and hospitals in Gujarat were required to get approval from government authorities even for prescribing a coronavirus test, which was subsequently scrapped following intervention by the High Court.
Meanwhile, Gujarat’s COVID-19 numbers jumped to 2,15,819 on Friday with 1510 new infections, and 18 new deaths have taken the fatality count to 4049. So far, 1,96,992 patients have been discharged. There are now 14778 active cases across the State.
