At a time when the union government and health experts are pressing for more tests to contain the contagion of Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities in Uttarakhand have slowed down the testing rate. An analysis of the last ten days shows that the testing percentage has seen a decrease of 17 percent in Uttarakhand. In the five day period between September 15 to 21, a total of 64322 tests were conducted in Uttarakhand while in the next five days (September 20 to 24) only 53486 tests were done. During the period of September 15 to 19 a total of 27032 tests were conducted in government labs while 37290 tests were done by private labs. In comparison, 31376 and 22110 tests were conducted by the private and government labs respectively between the periods September 20 to 24.
A district wise analysis of the two five day periods show that only Champawat ( Plus 44 percent), Almora ( plus 41 percent) and Haridwar ( Plus 30 percent) have done more tests between September 20 to 24 as compared to the previous five day period. The provisional state capital showed almost equal number of tests during these two periods.
The founder of Social Development for Communities Foundation (SDCF), Anoop Nautiyal said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly focussed on the 3T strategy of Test, Trace and Treat. He said that Uttarakhand needs to embrace this approach in its fight against the pandemic. Nautiyal said that there is an urgent need to start targeting minimum 15000 tests per day across all the districts of the state for the next three to four weeks.