Delhi's testing, vaccination slips to 2-wk low | Economic Times

Delhi is floundering on two main tenets of Covid-19 management — tests and vaccinations. At a time when it should be conducting at least 100,000 tests daily, of which 70% ought to be RT-PCR, the capital touched a two-week low of 57,690 tests on April 26 while infections grew rapidly.On the same day, only 43,637 vaccinations took place — lesser than those in geographies of Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and Odisha, which have a low Covid-19 caseload.The last time Delhi tested 100,000 samples was on April 14. Over the past week, it has consistently conducted less than 90,000 daily tests. The Centre has directed the states to ensure that at least 70% tests conducted daily should be RT-PCR, which is considered the gold standard on testing. In the capital, between April 20 and 26, this proportion was below 70%. Over the past two weeks, Delhi crossed the 70% RT-PCR mark only twice — 71.94% on April 15 and 75.83% on April 19. 82283803Pvt Labs Cite Lack of ManpowerPrivate laboratories attribute this decline to several factors including a demand-supply mismatch, infections to phlebotomists and other frontline staff besides shortage of reagents required for testing. “Overall the testing capacity has taken a hit due to a lack of manpower, especially data entry operators and sample collection technicians. The government must ease certain protocols,” said Chetan Kohli, COO, Genestrings Diagnostic Centre.“Some reagents used for critical blood tests for inflammatory markers in Covid-19 have been rapidly utilised due to the rush of patients needing these tests and are now in short supply. We have discussed this shortage with DG ICMR and secretary-pharmaceuticals and efforts are being made to import them on a war footing,” said NATHEALTH president Harsh Mahajan.The Centre has insisted on a test-track-treat-vaccinate protocol for Covid-19 management. Apart from testing, vaccination numbers have also nose-dived. From a capacity of inoculating 100,000 persons daily, Delhi has come down to 43,637 on April 26. On Saturday, the inoculations dropped to 35,455 — the lowest in two weeks. Since April 14, the city has not touched 100,000 inoculations even once. Fear of infections could be preventing people from stepping out of their homes to get the jab, health experts said.