DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand ranks 10 out of 11 Himalayan states and union territories per 10 lakh population testing for COVID-19 infection according to a study by a non-government organization.
Anoop Nautiyal, founder of Social Development for Communities Foundation which studied and collated the data till July 7, 2020 commenting on the issue said, "Uttarakhand should step up testing as we can see we still lag behind. We are fighting the epidemic buy still a lot more needs to be done."
Meghalaya is the only Himalayan state which fared worse than Uttarakhand. Ladakh which is on top of the list has tested seven time more than Uttarakhand while Himachal has done more than 80 per cent to testing than the hill state.
According to 2011 census, population of Uttarakhand stood 1 crore. Total 73156 tests were conducted till Wednesday which means the state conducted 732 tests per 10 lakh population.
With population of 1.22 crore, Jammu and Kashmir conducted 413358 tests which translated to 3388 tests per million population followed by Manipur which conducted 2140 tests per million, Tripura (2006), Arunachal (2005), Sikkim (1930), Mizoram (1369), Himachal Pradesh (1321), Nagaland (1060), Uttarakhand (732) and Meghalaya (708).
With two districts free from COVID-19 contagion and recovery rate over 80 per cent, Uttarakhand has managed to maintain recovery rate more than national average. Tehri and Rudraprayag districts have been declared COVID-19 free as infectees in the districts have recovered.
Till the writing of this report on Thursday evening, the hill state had 534 active cases of COVID-19 infection. Total 3258 cases have surfaced in the state out of which 2650 have recovered while 46 lives were lost due to fatal infection. Doubling rate in last 7 days have been recorded at 57.85 days.
Total samples taken for testing stands 83900 out of which 72862 have been found negative while backlog of samples stand at 5176 samples.
State Health Department spokesman JC Pandey said, "The testing has been stepped up as backlogs are decreasing now. With rapid kits already in use number of tests will go up soon. Everything is being done to contain the epidemic and the data shows our success."
