Aurangabad city: 7 in 10 tested for Covid

AURANGABAD: The city of Aurangabad has a Covid testing rate of 7.44 lakh per million, which is far better than the state’s average of 71,971 tests per million, official data shows.
Known for some pioneering efforts in its battle against the pandemic, the civic administration has been ensuring aggressive Covid testing measures since the beginning which has resulted into high testing rate.
While the municipal limits of Aurangabad were first in the state to carry out mandatory Covid testing of traders and vendors, such screenings also covered key government offices and city entry-points among other locations.
Dr Neeta Padalkar, health officer with the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), said aggressive testing has helped in containing the spread of Covid-19 earlier as compared to other metros. “Both RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests have been used effectively to carry out Covid testing. Even if active cases have dropped considerably now, the tests are still being carried out at key points,” she said.
As per official data, as many as 8,95,130 swab samples have been collected within the municipal limits of Aurangabad for Covid testing during the current pandemic. It includes 5,19,929 swabs samples for the purpose of performing antigen tests and 3,75,201 collected for RT-PCR testing.
On Sunday, Aurangabad reported 1,349 Covid tests and positivity rate of 0.82% which also included results of tests conducted between Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, Aurangabad reported 11 fresh cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, taking the tally of active cases to 49. The city also registered one death due to Covid-19, which has increased the progressive count of casualties to 1,942.