50 cases in 4 days: Amritsar admin admits it is testing less

“We had called a meeting of Senior Medical Officers (SMOs) today and they have been instructed to increase the testing right. Now we have been testing only 200 to 250 samples per day against target of 400. We have asked SMOs to increase our capacity from 400 to 500 per day. It is obvious that we will find more patients with more testing,” he said.

Three patients over the last one week have tested positive through private facilities. “These are mostly people who are opting for testing at private laboratories. Now two private laboratories are authorised for testing in Amritsar,” said the civil surgeon.

Number of hotspots in Amritsar city have increased from 5 to 15 in last 5 days. “We suspect that the cases have been increasing after the relaxations in the instructions of lockdown. Now people have been coming to markets and they are meeting each other. It has been increasing the cases of community spread. We have also discussed this factor in video conferencing with Chief Minister today. People are not following social distancing and it is also reason behind the increase in number of cases,” he said, adding: “We have been told to conduct home to home surveillance from June 1… Community spread is also happening in the district.”