The central government has revised the country's coronavirus-testing policy to reduce pressure on diagnostic labs amid a spurt of coronavirus cases triggered by the more dangerous second wave of infections. "Healthy" domestic travellers and Covid patients being discharged from hospitals must not be tested, it said.
The centre said the 2,506 labs in the country had been working under tremendous pressure because of the rapidly growing caseloads. It said the labs were also suffering with a shortage of staff as many workers had tested Covid positive.
"The need for RT-PCR test in healthy individuals undertaking inter-state domestic travel may be completely removed to reduce the load on laboratories," the centre said in a circular to states.
"No testing is required for COVID-19-recovered individuals at the time of hospital discharge," it added.
The centre said people who have tested positive once either by rapid tests or the gold standard RT-PCR tests must not be tested again.
Non-essential travel of people with Covid symptoms should be avoided to reduce the risk of infection and testing, the government added.
All asymptomatic individuals undertaking essential travel must follow COVID-appropriate behaviour.
