Despite number of COVID-19 positive cases increasing rapidly, health authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have been only testing those who have foreign travel history or come in contact with a confirmed case and shown symptoms after two weeks of quarantine.
As per daily data issued by the government, there has been a constant increase in the number of people enlisted for observation, put in hospital and home quarantines. However, the number of tests being carried has witnessed a minimal increase over a period of time. As of now a total of 4.6% of people have been tested out of those who are under observation, home and hospital quarantine, the data reveals.
On March 9, since the government started releasing data on situation emerging after the COVID-19 cases, there were 669 persons under observation, 460 under home quarantine and eight under hospital quarantine. The number of tests that were carried out at that particular point was 55.
With regard to the latest numbers of March 27, there has been a surge in the number of persons put under observation as well as those in home and hospital quarantine, or surveillance. Till March 27 evening, there were 5763 persons under observation, 3136 persons under home quarantine, 169 under hospital quarantine across J&K, while the number of tests carried was just 423.
Till March 28 evening, 27 people were tested positive in J&K, out of which one died while two have recovered. There was a steep jump on Saturday when seven people tested positive, the largest number in a single day.
A senior medico at Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar said that by not resorting to aggressive testing, the actual number of positives is not known. “The testing costs government money and restrictions is a way to keep a deluge of people from demanding tests. But it can backfire. Once we test, the number of positives will increase,” he warned.
As a result of the narrow testing criteria, the doctor said, sick people with potential exposure to the coronavirus are being sent home. “Given the pattern of disease in other places, and given our low level of testing, then I do think that community transmission is happening. I fear that J&K’s caseload could be much higher than government statistics reveal.”
The doctor said that a few thousand people, including students, who returned from abroad and have been haphazardly quarantined by the authorities is another worry. “There should have been segregation for those coming from the most affected countries and those having fewer cases. But unfortunately, everybody has been bundled together which could prove counterproductive,” he added.
Dr Parvaiz Kaul, Head of the Department of Medicine, at super-specialty SKIMS hospital says less number of testing patients is not specific to Kashmir but to the whole of India. “I time and again said that India has to scale up its testing to know the magnitude of the disease in its asymptomatic phase,” he added.
Authorities say most of the infections have been "imported" - linked to foreign travel or direct contact with someone who caught the disease abroad.
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