GURUGRAM: The city is witnessing close to 400 new cases of Covid-19 cases daily. The past week has seen a spurt in fresh cases because of a rise in pollution levels and increased movement of people, officials from the health department said.
Gurugram reported 397 new cases on Wednesday, taking the total
number of cases to 28,704.
No one succumbed to the infection in the past 24 hours, an official said. Till date, 206 people have died of Covid-19 in the city, of whom 153 had comorbidities.
Health department data reveals that Gurugram has recently reduced the number of rapid antigen tests. A total of 716 antigen and 2,506
RT-PCR tests were conducted on Monday, while 428 antigen and 2,826 RT-PCR tests were carried out the next day. Wednesday saw the number of antigen tests decreasing by over 116% as compared to Monday at 331, while the number of RT-PCR tests rose by over 25% to 3,151.
According to officials, this is because RT-PCR, which is considered the gold standard for detecting the infection, gives more accurate results compared to antigen tests. Moreover, the city doesn’t have enough antigen kits available for testing, so the authorities are conducting more RT-PCR tests.
“We have requested the Haryana government for more antigen kits. In antigen tests, the sensitivity ranges from 2% to 4% while in RT-PCR, it varies between 10% and 20%. Higher sensitivity helps in more accurate results. Thus, RT-PCR is a better test compared to antigen when it comes to detecting the novel coronavirus,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.