Lower positivity rate boosts Ganjam’s Covid fight

Berhampur: Amid rising cases of coronavirus in Ganjam district, there was some relief for the district administration with the positivity rate falling by half of what it was some 20 days back. Even though a single-day surge of 560 cases have pushed Ganjam’s infection count past 8000 on Saturday, the fall in positivity rate is giving the administration some breathing space.
“Some 20 days back, there were 70 positive cases out of 100 tests.Now, it has come down to 25-30 per 100 tests,” said district collector Vijay Amruta Kulange.
Number-wise, the spike in positive cases is high because the administration has ramped up testing. “While earlier we were testing around 500 daily, now it has gone past 1000,” Kulange added.
Moreover, the villages which were once hotspots, are now showing signs of improvement with no positive case in the last two weeks. “As many as 30 such villages have turned green in the last 10 days. That’s why we are confident that the numbers will soon start coming down in Ganjam,” he said.
Health experts, however, said the government should come out with a daily test report like positive and death cases in the district. “It’s premature to predict numbers as a lot of people are not showing interest to come forward for testing. It’s because a certain fear has developed among them,” said Naryan Mishra, a retired professor of chest diseases at MKCG Medical College and Hospital.
He said more tests are needed along with building confidence measure among people. “Calculation of a daily basis should be done to know the exact percentage of positive persons in the district,” Mishra added.
“To see the improvement, we can take daily cases and divide it by daily tests to get an approximation of ‘positivity’, which is the total proportion of tests which come back positive,” said Sunil Kumar Kotta, a private practitioner.
Meanwhile, the district's total Covid-19 patients increased to 8,194 with the addition of 560 fresh cases and the death toll has gone up to 73 with three more succumbing to the virus.
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Ray of hope
Positivity rate is the percentage of cases per hundred samples tested. While it was 70% some 20 days back, it has come down to 25-30% at present. Compared to Ganjam, Odisha’s positivity rate is around 10.36%