Where is the country standing right now is something the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi needs to make a stand clear on in terms of the number of tests being done.
At present the tests are only being performed on the people who have travelled back to the country or on the ones who have come in contact with these people and showing symptoms after two weeks of quarantine. There have been several cases of healthcare workers who have been treating these patients to be facing severe respiratory illnesses.
India so far has reported 700 cases, even while under a complete lockdown till 14th April including an alleged 16 deaths because of the virus. India has performed tests on approximately 25000 people according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), till 25th March of this year. Out of these people who were tested a staggering 600 people had been confirmed positive and had a very high chance of infecting people they had met.
The facts at present have cleared that there are only 18 tests available per one million people in this country. The experts around the world and in the country have been making arguments that chances are the number of cases is far higher than actually reported but since the tests rate is so low, they haven't yet come out or even checked for starters. The countries that reported a high number of positive cases have been doing far more tests in comparison and hence we saw a meteoric rise in the number in South Korea, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, and China.
To put it in further perspective, Italy had performed more than 300000 tests till 25th march and reported more than 70000 cases. The rate of tests was approximately 5000 per million of the population of the city according to the ministry of health. On the other hand, South Korea has managed to handle the crisis and control the virus decently. They performed more than 35000 tests and the rate per million was approximately 6000. Sources have put out in open, in India, the centres that have tested a greater number of people have confirmed a higher number of cases.
But having said that, on the other hand, World Health Organisation has appreciated India's efforts to curb down the effect of the virus, they have applauded the measures taken by the government to ensure the safety of the people and the decision of lockdown as a vital step towards the same. Though the Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that the lockdown may not be enough but it looks like a healthy step.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated, "Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace is not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictions, but they're also the best way to prevent them."
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