With every passing day the need for mass testing for #covid becomes more urgent.Let me explain.What we have done now through the lockdown is bought time & reduced the risk of spread.This is akin to putting a patient on a ventilator.Ventilation will not cure but will give time to
treat the condition. Without the Ventilator the patient may have collapsed already. So we have bought 3 weeks time to reduce spread. #COVID has no cure. So effectively treatment needed is mostly prevention & supportive treatment for positive patients. What does prevention entail
Prevention entails identifying those affected along with their contacts and isolating them. How do you identify those affected?By testing as many as possible. Anyone with symptoms of cough,cold,fever,all contacts of positive cases & healthcare workers wt contact need to be tested
If we test 3000 patients across the country each day as we r now and get,say 200-300 positive cases then we isolate them and their contacts. However it is well known that there can be asymptomatic carriers as well as contacts who may be positive but haven't been tested.
Clearly,if we tested 10000 cases a day it is almost certain that at least a few hundred cases extra will be identified. Isolating them is critical to reduce the spread. Now the lockdown is keeping them from mass spreading to an extent. On the day the lockdown is lifted,
there will be x no. of cases who are still spreading the virus.This needs to be the lowest number possible.Obviously we cannot test everyone but we need to ramp up testing to at least 25-30k tests a day. The US is testing 100k each day. Germany 500k a week.S.Korea has tested 400k
When the lockdown is eased the positive cases go back in the community and spread occurs again. This needs to be manageable or else another lockdown becomes necessary. What if lockdown is continued until the spread is stopped? We don't know how long this can take and costs r huge
An indefinite lockdown is not an option for India. We need to get the economy running again with the lowest risk to life and health from #COVID as possible. That "x" number therefore becomes critical. Fewer the patients we test now the higher will be "x" when lockdown is lifted
So far we have tested <40000 people. This is an abysmal number for a population of 1.3 billion. While no number is high enough we need to take a cue from what other countries are doing. The 25k/day no.I gave is an arbitrary one but we need to look at what is doable and do the max
Govt.needs to ensure test kits ASAP &ramp up testing significantly over next 2 weeks.Else despite the lockdown we may see a surge of cases once it is lifted. Sorry for the rant on this topic but I thought I would try again to explain why more testing is critical. #Covid_19india
