‘Coronavirus is in control, no need to fear hidden spike’: Govt offers big assurance

The government said that only 4% of the total people tested were turning out to be positive and this had not changed in the past month.

The government on Friday said that there was no need to fear a hidden spike in the number of coronaviurus cases in India since the country’s testing strategy has been adequate to prevent such a scenario.

Government says there is no need to worry about ‘hidden positive cases’ that have not been tested. (HT Photo/Sameer Sehgal)

Government’s backing for its testing protocol or strategy came on Friday during the routine ministerial briefing on the status of coronavirus containment efforts in the country. The officials chairing two out of the 11 empowered groups constituted by the Centre to devise, implement and monitor India’s strategy against the pandemic said that despite expanding the testing net by 24 times, the number of positive coronavirus cases had not risen exponentially.

“Our testing strategy has stood the test of time. The volume of testing has been adequate; despite an increase in testing, the proportion of positive cases has not increased. No need to fear of hidden spike in cases, the disease is in control,” said the chairman for the empowered group number 1.

Concerns have been raised in the past by experts about India’s strategy of testing symptomatic cases and the threat of a jump in infections through asymptomatic carriers of the disease. The government data shows that a very high percentage of positive people have been found to be asymptomatic, giving rise to such concerns. But the government officials said that their analysis didn’t find any cause for concern.

“Since the lockdown, growth in positive cases has not been exponential. During the lockdown period, despite a 24 fold increase in testing, the percentage of positive cases is not rising,” the official quoted above said.

He also claimed that surveillance of suspects and clusters and containment zones had played an important role in the containment of the disease. He added that a big behavioural change had been seen in the society which deserved to be credited for the success achieved so far in fighting the disease through social distancing measures.

“Besides containing spread, augmenting testing, improving preparedness, the nation has brought about a massive behaviour change through a Jan Andolan,” the chairman for empowered group 1 said.

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The government has also decided to constitute three more inter-ministerial central teams (IMCT) that will be dispatched to Surat, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and to Hyderabad and Chennai to evaluate implementation of containment efforts on the ground level.