Coronavirus Pandemic: Uttar Pradesh crosses one-lakh mark in per day testing

Uttar Pradesh breached the one-lakh mark for per day testing of samples on Sunday becoming the first state in the country to have tested more than one lakh samples per day, senior government officials said. The state tested 1,06,962 samples on Sunday, including RT-PCR tests, Trunat tests and more than 50,000 antigen tests.

"In the area of testing, UP has set a new record yesterday," Amit Mohan Prasad, principal secretary for health in UP said adding that the state has now tested 19.41 lakh samples.

With samples tested on the largest scale so far in the state, it also reported the highest number of cases in a single day at 3,578, thus reflecting a positivity rate of 3.5%, said Prasad. The state has now reported a total of 70,493 cases with 26,204 active cases and 1,456 deaths.


UP CM Yogi Adityanath has directed districts having a population of more than 25 lakh to conduct more than 1,500 antigen tests per day and for population less than 25 lakh to conduct about 1,000 antigen tests in a day, to keep up the rate of testing more than 1 lakh samples, additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi said. He has also called for conducting more than 35,000 RT-PCR tests per day.

Antigen tests that produce a result between 15-30 minutes are followed by a RT-PCR test to rule out infection, if the person is tested negative, but a positive result is considered a true positive , not requiring confirmation through a RT-PCR, according to an advisory by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).