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Doubling rate slows down, but more positive cases per 100 tests

Hindustan Times, Pune | BySteffy Thevar
Jun 21, 2020 04:33 PM IST

The city’s positive rate — number of confirmed cases per 100 tests — has gone up from earlier 10 per cent to 13 per cent as of June 19.

The city’s doubling rate of progressive positive Covid-19 (coronavirus) cases has slowed to 24 days as of June 19, according to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) projection. The previous doubling rate was 19 days on June 9, five days on April 11 and 14 days on May 21.

However, the city’s positive rate — number of confirmed cases per 100 tests — has gone up from earlier 10 per cent to 13 per cent as of June 19. The figure is, however, much less than Maharashtra’s current rate of 20.58 per cent.

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While PMC’s projection about doubling rate brings hope, increased positive rate indicates that the civic body is not conducting as many tests despite having a larger capacity, politicians say.

Rubal Aggarwal, additional municipal commissioner, said, “Based on the current average growth rate, it would take 23 days for the progressive positive cases to double and 26 days for the active cases to double.”

Opposition member and Congress party corporator Arvind Shinde said, “Despite the fact that Pune has more capacity to carry out tests, PMC is not conducting tests to check positive cases.”

Dr Vijay Natrajan, chief executive officer, Symbiosis Hospital, said, “As the lockdown opens up, it is expected that the number of cases will rise. Currently, the government should focus more on bringing down the mortality rate.”

“PMC is doing a satisfactory job by tracking vulnerable people like comorbid patients, pregnant women and senior citizens. However, it is natural that a certain number of people are likely to get critically infected due to the virus and the government should focus more on bringing down the mortality rate by hiring experts and build up infrastructure for critical care,” said Dr Natrajan.

As per the information on PMC smart city dashboard, the city’s progressive positive cases stand at 11,115 with 3,722 active cases. Out of the 81,511 tests conducted, over 13.6 per cent tested positive for the virus which earlier in the month of May the number stood at around 10 per cent. The figure indicates that as the number of tests rises, the number of sample testing positives also rises. The current average is 13 samples testing positive for every 100 samples.

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