Harsh Vardhan presses for mandatory retesting of RAT -ves
New Delhi: As Delhi kept up with its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting over 6,700 new cases on Thursday, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan pressed for the mandatory retesting of all those who test negative for the disease on the rapid antigen test. He noted that false-negatives from RATs could lead to complacency among prospective COVID-19 patients.
Vardhan's remarks came at a high-level COVID-19 review meeting he chaired where the pandemic strategy for Delhi was discussed with senior officials, including L-G Anil Baijal, Health Minister Satyendar Jain and bureaucrats from the Centre and the Delhi
government.
Delhi COVID-19 tally, meanwhile, increased to over 4.16 lakh on Thursday as the Capital added a whopping 66 deaths to its toll, which now stands at 6,769. A total of 52,294 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, of which 15,704 were RT-PCR tests and the rest were rapid antigen tests.
Vardhan, at the meeting, also noted that Delhi's ratio of RT-PCR to RATs is at 77 per cent (i.e. 77 per cent tests are RATs) and expressed concern over high positivity rates in the north, central, northeast, east, northwest and southeast districts.
However, the Delhi government later hit back, saying, Delhi's ratio of RAT to RT-PCR tests stands at 77 per cent primarily because Delhi has adopted an aggressive testing strategy and is testing more than any city or state in India, and in fact, among the highest in the world.
"We stand committed to increasing our capacity to conduct more RT-PCR tests and urge the Centre to provide all possible resources towards that end," the Delhi government said.
While the L-G noted that the Delhi administration is doing everything to inculcate changes in the standard operating procedures, Jain requested the Centre to add ICU beds at AIIMS here and other central hospitals.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan requested the Delhi administration to shift patients requiring critical care to the Defence Medical Hospital Facility at Dhaula Kuan that has a provision for 125 ICU beds.
