In last 10 days, 43% of state’s Covid tests in city

Gurgaon: As a precautionary measure due to Covid-19 outbreaks in parts of the world, districts across the state have been asked to scale up testing but 43% of all samples tested for the viral infection over the last ten days are just from Gurgaon.
According to data by the state health department, 42,000 diagnostic tests were conducted in Haryana from December 21 to 30.
Of this, 18,820 were in Gurgaon while neighbouring Faridabad’s share was just 2% (1,086 tests).
The uneven testing figures are also in line with the number of patients testing positive for Covid-19. The state has recorded 33 new cases in the same time frame, of which 23 are from Gurgaon.
Several other districts have not seen any positive cases, likely also because of the lack of testing. For instance, Hisar has been testing around 95 samples a day on average.
Nuh has carried out the least number of tests — 755, or 16 tests daily -- in the past 10 days. It is followed by Sonipat, with 42 tests a day.
At 101 daily, Jind logged 1,019 tests between December 21 and 30. Palwal stood at a total of 2,621 and Ambala at 2,084 tests.
Officials said on Friday that though the number of tests isn’t too high, there is little cause for concern as infections don’t appear to be on a rise.
“We are getting two to three positive cases daily and our positivity is less than 0.1%. If the positivity increases, we will increase further testing and also reserve hospital beds,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.
Asked about the lag in testing in other districts, Dr Dhruv Chaudhary, the nodal officer for Covid-19 in Haryana and the head of the department of pulmonary and critical care at PGIMS-Rohtak, said, “We have informed all districts to increase testing and have asked them be prepared as the number of cases are likely to increase.”
The state government, on December 23 issued directions to district authorities to increase random testing and genomic surveillance of infected patients amid concerns of a Covid-19 spread after a surge of cases in China. Experts and authorities have urged for caution, but also pointed out that there’s no need to panic as India’s population, armed with vaccination and immunity from previous infections, has been living with the virus as against China, which recently withdrew strict ‘zero-Covid’ restrictions it had imposed for years.
On Friday, doctors at Gurgaon hospitals where Covid-19 patients are being treated said the symptoms were similar to other viral infections.
“We have not observed an increase in the number of Covid cases in our OPD. At present, the symptoms are mostly cold, cough, fever, sore throat, lethargy and body ache,” said Dr Sushila Kataria, senior director of internal medicine at Medanta Hospital, Gurgaon.
Additional chief secretary (health) G Anupama did not respond to requests for comment till Friday evening.