BENGALURU: Even while the number of tests is increasing, the speed or rate at which this is happening is less and is not sufficient to block the spread of the virus, a weekly analysis of six mega cities, including Bengaluru, has found.
The analysis was done by Jeevan Raksha, an initiative by Proxima Consulting and Public Health Foundation of India.
For instance, in Bengaluru, the percentage of increase in the number of tests was 234 in June, which decreased to 187 in July, 169 in August, 94% in September and 87% in October.
“The testing is inadequate in Bengaluru with respect to the sheer size of the population. Virus is spreading wide and fast across the city. In all, 2,07,000 tests per million population conducted by Bengaluru Urban is inadequate as well as not fast enough to stop the spread of the virus,” said Mysore Sanjeev, convenor, Jeevan Raksha.
The Population positivity rate shows that the coronavirus is spreading fast in the city.
As of September 19, 1.6% of the population in Bengaluru was infected, which increased to 2.6% as of October 24, highest amongst all the 6 mega cities in India.
As a whole, in Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, 1.5% of the total 8.45 crore population have already tested positive.
On the positive side, the active cases in Bengaluru have dropped from 65,000 to 51,000, test positivity rate is down from 14% to 12.6%, average daily number of cases has dropped and number of deaths is relatively lower in October until Friday.
The weekly moving growth rate of testing has also reduced in Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi, based on a comparison between (September 12-19) and (October 17 to 24).
For example, in Bengaluru, the 7-day moving growth rate for testing between September 12 (11,90,000 tests) and September 19 (13,70,000 tests) was 15%.
However the 7-day moving growth rate between October 17 (23,80,000 tests) and October 24 (25,60,000) was only 8%. In the pandemic, the upward and downward movement of 7-Day Moving Growth Rate (MGR) of testing indicates the speed at which the administration is moving towards blocking the virus from spreading in the region.
“If the testing MGR moves upwards, it means that the administration is moving faster and identifying more number of infected people at an early stage and helping them recover fast. But if it moves downwards, then the pace of testing is not matching with the velocity of the virus spread,” Sanjeev said.
“One of the inferences we can make, with respect to declining MGR, is that the system capacity has reached its optimum level and is slowing down due to lack of resources The government must reinforce
BBMP with additional resources for containment management,” he added.