Is the decline in number of daily COVID-19 positive cases in the country due to a dip in the growth rate of testing?
Jeevan Raksha has claimed that the number of positive cases appear to be going down on account of a decline in the rate of testing.
While the daily COVID-19 tally in the country had come down from more than 92,000 to 72,000 over the last one month, starting mid-September, Jeevan Raksha’s Mysore Sanjeev pointed out that the period also saw a decline in the moving growth rate of testing. In August, the seven-day moving growth rate of testing was consistent in the range of 18 to 20%, which led to an increase in daily cases. However, between September 1 and October 10, the seven-day moving growth rate of testing halved from 18 to 9%, leading to a decrease in the daily cases.
“In a pandemic when Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of a region is above 5%, the number of positive cases will be directly proportional to the number of testing in normal conditions. Higher the qualitative testing, higher will be the positive cases and vice versa,” he said.
A fifth of the total COVID-19 cases across the world are in India. While the global COVID-19 cases are increasing, the trend is moving in the opposite direction in India, he said.
