Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday when the Capital witnessed a rise in the cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) people advised him to reduce the number of tests or indulge in fudging the results but his government did not pay heed to such unethical advice. “Once cases started going up people started wrongly advising me to reduce testing or fraudulently improve testing results,” Kejriwal said during a press conference.
Without naming any particular state, Kejriwal said that people who advised him to fudge the numbers were influenced by instances of other regions indulging in unfair testing practices. States fraudulently improved results to show they have successfully controlled the spread of the virus, he claimed. “A video from another state showed one doctor swabbing his nose for 50 negative test samples,” he added.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the Capital stands at 614,775 as of Friday. According to the bulletin issued by the Delhi health department on Friday, 88,400 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, out of which 48,180 are RT-PCR tests and 40,220 rapid antigen tests.
The Delhi chief minister made similar comments on Twitter on Wednesday, while responding to a report of fake names being registered in order to show increased Covid-19 testing in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly. “Yogi ji, the great work on our corona is being discussed in the street mohallas of UP. Like you, we do not do fake corona tests. Manish ji is coming to Lucknow to debate on 22 December at the invitation of your minister,” he had tweeted.
Emphasising that his government’s goal was to get the coronavirus disease under control, Kejriwal said by keeping people’s well being in mind and not increasing numbers the Delhi government soldiered on and now the positivity rate has come down to 1.3% as opposed to 15.26% in November. “If we commit fraud, how will we rein in this disease? How will we properly test and isolate people?” Kejriwal asked.
{{/usCountry}}Emphasising that his government’s goal was to get the coronavirus disease under control, Kejriwal said by keeping people’s well being in mind and not increasing numbers the Delhi government soldiered on and now the positivity rate has come down to 1.3% as opposed to 15.26% in November. “If we commit fraud, how will we rein in this disease? How will we properly test and isolate people?” Kejriwal asked.
{{/usCountry}}Kejriwal thanked all healthcare workers for sticking to ethical practices as per his instructions and lauded them. “I instructed all the doctors and officers against such acts because numbers are not important for us, people’s lives and health are important. Each and every test done in Delhi is true and genuine. We did not commit any frauds, I salute my doctors for their efforts,” he said.