Pune: The district administration is concerned about the high positivity rate of COVID-19 cases which is around 25 per cent in Pune city as well as the district area. The administration has attributed it to effective high-risk contact tracing and set a target to reduce it below 10 per cent as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) norms.

Pune District Collector Naval Kishor Ram said, “We are conducting COVID-19 tests for an average of 12500 samples daily. We have a hit rate of 20 to 25 per cent which needs to come down, but it is also an indication that the contact tracing is being done properly. Especially, high-risk contacts are being traced effectively and that explains the higher positivity rate.”

“Recently, we did testing of 75 high-risk contacts in the district. Of these 75, 26 samples had tested positive for COVID-19. So the positivity rate is about 34 per cent, but this does not mean that the situation is out of control. Positivity rate is higher all across the country. For a few days, we might see a bad picture, but in future, it will improve considerably. The main indicator for this is the Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) which has come down from 2.74 per cent to 2.38 per cent.”

Special Officer Saurabh Rao said, “The positivity rate is more than 20 per cent in all major cities including Mumbai, Thane, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The ICMR norms say that this rate should be below 10 per cent and we are having it between 20 to 25 per cent.”

“We are redefining our containment strategy and revamping our teams on the field. The tests per million population prescribed by ICMR are 140 but we are conducting close to 1,400 tests per million. We are also increasing the comorbid patient tracing to reduce the case fatality ratio. It will help us to reach and provide good healthcare services to critical patients in less time,” said Rao.