36 days on, Chamarajpet residents yet to get Covid-19 test results

BENGALURU: Several residents in Chamarajpet swabbed for Covid-19 at a testing drive on August 10 were waiting for results on Tuesday. Many residents said they were asked to undergo tests by local leaders though they lacked symptoms.
“Does it take so long to declare results? We never had symptoms, yet we were asked to take tests. Our experience shows the state of affairs in Covid testing. We were told our test result will be communicated to us in three days,” GS Kumar, 63, who underwent the test, told TOI. Kumar’s wife TS Bhargavi, 58, was also swabbed for RT-PCR test.
When TOI checked with the authorities on Tuesday, it was learnt that Kumar and his wife were negative. The same had not been communicated to them. Kumar later got a call from senior officials that he and his wife had tested negative. “It’s a relief we tested negative. What if we were positive? We have had stressful days, though we didn’t have symptoms. I got a call from a senior officer, who said action will be initiated against the agency for not informing us of Covid results,” Kumar said.
Kumar received a message from officers that their test results were uploaded on the ICMR portal, but was not ensured they were communicated about it. He received a datasheet where his and his wife’s reports were mentioned as negative.
We’ll check why test results not sent to the couple: Official
The datasheet said Kumar’s neighbours Manjula Gopinath, 52, and her son Sagar, 19, had tested negative, but they, too, haven’t received phone calls or messages. “We had no symptoms then -- and now. We haven’t received our result,” Manjula told TOI, adding at least two more neighbours are yet to get results.
The datasheet had 35 names, but it could not be verified how many of them were yet to be communicated about their results.
Arundhathi Chandrashekar, mission director, National Health Mission, said instructions have been given to BBMP and labs to communicate results to those who have taken Covid tests. “We will check why the test results were not communicated to the couple. One of the two agencies would communicate the result,” she said.
Covid-19 reports can be checked online using the Specimen Referral Form (SRF) number. When checked for results of Kumar, wife, neighbour Manjula and her son using SRF numbers on https://www.covidwar.karnataka.gov.in, TOI received a message: “Check SRF ID entered. If it’s correct, then the result awaited.”