The positivity rate among people randomly tested for Covid-19 at Gautam Buddh Nagar's Delhi border was higher than in non-border areas of the district on Thursday, according to officials.
The Gautam Buddh Nagar administration had on Wednesday started random testing of people coming from Delhi to Noida at the borders of the two cities amid a spike in coronavirus cases in the national capital.
On Thursday, 178 people were randomly tested at Ashok Nagar and at the Botanical Garden Metro Station, while 165 tests were done on Wednesday at the DND and the Chilla borders in Noida, according to officials.
Nine incoming people were found Covid-19 positive during the random antigen-based tests on Thursday and three were found positive on Wednesday, as per official figures.
Giving details of Thursday, Additional Chief Medical Officer (ACMO) Sanjeev Manglik said 178 random antigen-based tests were done and out of these nine were found positive for the novel coronavirus.
"The positivity rate in border areas was 5.06 per cent," he said.
On the other hand, 2,712 antigen-based tests were done in non-border areas of the district and 27 positive cases were reported, Manglik said, adding that the positivity rate was less than one per cent.
"In non-border areas, the positivity rate was 0.99 per cent," the ACMO said.
The purpose of randomly testing incoming people from Delhi at Noida's borders was to assess and prevent the spread of the infection from high-risk carriers, according to District Magistrate Suhas L Y.
"This is being done in order to assess the spread of the infection and would help in issuing advisories to employers and organisations, where a large number of people work and commute between Gautam Buddh Nagar and adjacent areas, so that the spread of infection is contained to a large extent," he said earlier this week.
Gautam Buddh Nagar had 1,401 active cases of Covid-19, while the district's overall infection tally stood at 21,166 and the death toll at 74, according to official data on Friday.
Delhi has crossed five lakh cases while its death toll was around 8,000, according to official figures.