PANAJI
In a shoddy attempt at explaining the sudden drop in Covid-19 testing in the State, the Health Minister denied the charge that the State government is not pushing for a false sense of safety during the ongoing pandemic.
The drop of almost 50 per cent in testing numbers was discernible in the daily bulletin released by the Health Department on October 19. Offering several reasons to explain the phenomenon, the minister said, “We are not pushing for a false sense of safety. The numbers dropped on that Sunday, as every other Sunday, because people don’t step out for testing on a Sunday. Testing has also dropped because large companies that used to come for free testing have been asked to go for private and paid testing as they can afford it.”
The Health Minister expressed his opinion that in a State like Goa, the daily testing figures should be around 2,000 to 2,500.
“I am saying that we should maintain about 2,000 to 2,500 testing capacity per day. We cannot drop below that. We have the power to gather information from these private labs and share it with Goans,” the minister stated.
Meanwhile, it was informed that the Directorate of Health Services has distributed the recently unveiled home isolation kit among over 3,500 asymptomatic Covid-19 patients so far. DHS has a stock of around 4,000 more kits.
The minister said that with most people opting for home isolation, the available bed capacity in the State is sufficient to handle Covid cases. A total of 20,846, almost half of the 41,813 confirmed cases in Goa, have opted for home isolation so far.
It was also informed that the third year MBBS students from Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim have been roped in to telephonically contact home isolating patients to collect data which will help monitoring their condition in a more organised manner.
In a bid to further fine tune the Covid policy of the State, the DHS is also expected to issue renewed SOPs for contact tracing focused on the time gap between a person testing positive and testing of their family members. That SOP will be issued by the DHS.
