Ghaziabad administration may put an end to Covid testing at the borders

The Ghaziabad administration is thinking about putting an end to Covid-19 testing at borders as the administration has come across only a single positive case during

The Ghaziabad administration is thinking about putting an end to Covid-19 testing at borders as the administration has come across only a single positive case during the three days of testing, which started on November 24. The figures of the district health department have revealed that out of the 441 tests conducted so far, only a single person tested positive.

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The testing at the borders started on November 24 and was taken up at UP Gate, as well as two other borders near Delhi’s Dilshad Garden. The officials said that since the results are not encouraging, it will no longer be feasible to carry out the tests.

“The testing is being carried out at the borders as of now. But, we have achieved hardly any success. We will ask the teams to conduct tests for another couple of days and will relocate them to other areas. The positivity rate of such random testing is very less, which is similar to the positivity rate of the post-festival focussed testing, which was taken up on the directions of the government,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate.

“We will be increasing testing only in high-incidence areas. Our post-festival testing strategy is to check the spread of infection in places that already have a high incidence rate,” he added.

Under the focussed testing strategy, between November 19 to November 30, the heath teams have taken up 11,288 rapid antigen samples, which yielded only 96 positive cases with a positivity of about 0.85%.

“The positivity rate of the focussed/targeted testing during the pre-festival period was also very less at about 0.38%. Likewise, the positivity rate during the post-festival targeted testing was hardly any better. On the other hand, the positivity of rapid antigen testing is ranging from 1.5% to 3% on a daily basis at our testing centres,” said an officer from the health department, who wished not to be named.

“As per our analysis, most of the positivity or positive cases are found in urban areas like Indirapuram, Vaishali and Sahibabad, where population density is high and people are moving about for work on a daily basis. During the focussed testing in slum areas, we did not find a single case in three days,” the officer, said.

The 96 positive cases in the post-festival focussed testing were found in areas like Vaishali, Indirapuram, Sahibabad, Kavi Nagar and Crossings Republik, while no cases were detected in urban slums, Dasna jail or observation homes.

“Even if the test results in focussed testing have shown low positivity, it shows that infection is concentrated only in certain pockets. As such, increased testing and surveillance are needed in these areas. The officials should therefore increase testing and focus on high-incidence areas,” said Dr VB Jindal, former president of Indian Medical Association – Ghaziabad.

The residential segments of Indirapuram, Carte (Shastri Nagar, Chiranjeev Vihar etc), Sahibabad-2 (Rajendra Nagar, Lajpat Nagar etc), Raj Nagar and Vaishali have emerged as top five contributors to the Covid-19 tally in Ghaziabad district as per the mapping done on directions of the UP government for focussed surveillance.

The five segments contribute about 56.82% share of 1,260 Covid-19 cases, which have come in during the 10-day period between November 11 to November 20. The mapping was done on directions of the state government.