Belagavi reeling under high Covid test positivity rate

As Covid-19 numbers officially recede from Bengaluru Urban, several districts have been bearing the brunt of infections. Among them is Belagavi, which has been reporting the highest test positivity rate in the state since the start of May.

Initially starting out with a Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of 1.1% between March 14 and 21, the district's Covid-19 cases began to surge and low testing resulted in the test positivity rate climbing out of control. Between May 13 and 19, as per data from the State Covid War room, the district's test positivity rate was staggering 61.59%, and has only recently reduced to 44.5%, after the district scaled up its testing to catch outlying cases.

Covid-19 cases, which were initially low, climbed to 2,234 on May 19, before coming down slightly in recent days. Deputy Commissioner, M G Hiremath, said that the launching of house-to-house testing across 135 villages in the district had found new cases but had also reduced the test positivity rate.

"The fact is that the number of cases that we were finding have come down as we increased our testing. Earlier we were getting about 2,000 cases. On Saturday and Sunday, we averaged only about a thousand new cases per day," he said.

On Monday, only 747 cases were found despite the increase in testing. District officials believe they now have the situation under control.

However, increasing testing in an area where cases are declining are not necessarily useful, experts said.

"The test positivity rate is a reflection of several things and it depends on which stage of the curve the district is in. If case numbers are ascending, the test positivity rate will be high if testing is low. In the descending phase of the outbreak, the case numbers will be low but if testing is increased, the TPR will fall," explained the noted epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu.

Dr Babu said that he had also seen a trend whereby officials increase testing numbers after the surge is over, which serves to dramatically reduce the test positivity rate. "On the positive side, it helps with better containment," he said.

Hiremath added that infection spread from people from neighboring Maharashtra had also been curtailed. “We have strict protocols at places along the border. Nobody is allowed to enter without a negative RT-PCR certificate,” he said.