Covid-19: Karnataka tests 1 lakh in a day, aims for 1.5 lakh

BENGALURU: Karnataka conducted 1,04,348 Covid-19 tests on Tuesday, and aims to increase the number to 1.5 lakh per day, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said on Wednesday.He said on Twitter that on Tuesday, 55,690 RT-PCR and other tests were conducted across 146 labs, and 48,658 Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) were conducted across 30 districts.On Wednesday, Bengaluru screened 35,183 people, the highest number so far. These include 25,053 RT-PCR tests and 10,130 RATs.

Munish Moudgil, State War Room in-charge, said, "Benglauru is doing the highest daily RT-PCR tests in India, which shows the high number of cases. Mumbai and Chennai have been doing about 13,000 tests daily. If Bengaluru does this, our daily cases will be less than 1,500."

"However, the idea is not to reduce tests to falsely reduce daily cases. Bengaluru deserves appreciation for high testing," he added.The state ranks 7th in terms of tests per million population, compared to other states with a population over 10 million. Ahead of Karnataka are Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Assam.