Pune’s positivity rate rises; cases increase as compared to number of tests

As per the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), with rising cases of Covid-19 over the past weeks, the city’s positivity rate has gone up from below 10 per cent before Diwali (November 6 to November 12) to close to 13 per cent in the week after Diwali (November 13 to November 19).

Although the civic body has been increasing its testing numbers, in the week after Diwali, the city saw a drastic rise in the number of cases in comparison to the tests conducted by the civic body.

Since October, the number of fresh Covid-19 cases were reducing which had led to a drop in the number of tests being carried out by the administration. In the week before Diwali (November 6 to November 12), the city conducted 15,555 Covid-19 tests in which 1,468 fresh Covid-19 cases were reported and the positivity rate fell down to 9.4 per cent, whereas in the week after Diwali (November 13 to November 19), the city conducted 13,260 Covid-19 tests of which 1,722 fresh Covid-19 positive cases were reported, which led to a rise in the positivity rate to about 13%.

Positivity rate defines the spread of the infection and is measured as per the number of cases reported for every 100 detection tests conducted. The civic body is now increasing the number of tests conducted in 24 hours. Priori to Diwali, the civic body conducted around 1,000 tests which has now gone up to over 4,500 as of Sunday.

PMC additional commissioner Rubal Agarwal, said, “We were informed about some technical issues at the NIV which affected the number of samples being tested on a daily basis from earlier 100-1,200 to only 600. This might have brought down the number of tests being collected temporarily. During Diwali too, we had kept all our testing centres open, but unfortunately no one came forward. However, we have increased the testing numbers to more than 4,500 now since the past three days and we will increase them even more in the coming days.”

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