THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The extension of lockdown has worsened the livelihood issues so much so that experts have demanded the government to further ease the restrictions without compromising on the vigil against Covid. According to them, further tightening of restrictions without finding more Covid positive people is an anti-poor stand by the government. Finding more Covid positive people by increasing the number of tests is the need of the hour to reduce the test positivity rate, which is the number of positive cases among the total samples tested.
Even when the daily test numbers have reduced considerably than the pre-lockdown days, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday said the TPR not coming down was the major reason for extending the lockdown. He, however, said the lockdown had been effective as the spread of infection and the crowding at hospitals had come down during the period. The rush witnessed on Friday itself was proof that people needed more such days instead of getting small window periods, he said.
“Most people do not have the financial cushion to wait till the TPR comes to a desirable level at the current levels of testing. Instead, the government should increase the number of tests by at least 40,000 to reduce the TPR. Instead of locking down the entire population, it would be better to find more Covid positive people and lock them down,” said health activist Dr Arun N M.
The state imposed the lockdown on May 8 and extended it twice till June 16, affecting mainly the livelihood of people working in unorganised sectors. Even when there is a threat of a third wave looming, experts want the government to take the moderate risk for the sake of addressing the livelihood issues. While the government relies on TPR data, the reports from testing centres found that only symptomatic people get tested.
State secretary of Indian Medical Association, Dr Gopikumar P, said the testing strategy using rapid antigen kits was fraught with accuracy issues and the actual infection spread in the society would be higher. “It is true that the continuation of lockdown has started affecting even the upper middle class. But lockdown should not be lifted suddenly as it had happened after the first wave,” he said.
“The testing numbers have reduced because many are not coming forward. Lifting the lockdown all of a sudden will be disastrous because of the threat of the third wave of Covid. Still, we can check various epidemiological indicators including TPR to offer relaxation in districts that are in a better position compared to others,” said Dr Anish T S, assistant professor at the Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College Hospital, here.
Campaign Against Pseudo Science Using Law and Ethics (CAPSULE) chairman Dr U Nandakumar Nair said more testing is the need of the hour as testing, tracing and isolating continue to be the key to checking the spread of infection till a majority of people get vaccinated.
TPR CONUNDRUM
Test positivity rate (TPR) is a metric to measure the current level of Covid transmission. It is the number of people found positive when 100 samples are tested. Inaccurate test results (depending on the quality of test kits) affect the reading. Testing only symptomatic samples gives high TPR.