ICMR Revises COVID-19 Testing Strategy Even As Steve Hanke Of JHU Criticises India’s Testing Rate

The Indian Council of Medical Research informed on April 9 that the positivity rate for coronavirus ranges between 3-5% in the last 1-1.5 months and that it has not increased substantially. Dr Murhekar of ICMR also informed that till April 8, 130000 samples were tested of which 5734 samples tested positive. The country currently has 6412 confirmed cases with 199 deaths being reported. However, Johns Hopkins University Professor Steve Hanke criticised the Modi government over lower COVID-19 testing in India. He warned that if the situation remains the same then India can easily ‘turn into the next Italy’. Meanwhile, ICMR in a statement said that currently, the country is testing 18,000 samples for coronavirus per day across 192 government and private laboratories. They also informed that it is gearing to add 200 additional labs for round-the-clock COVID-19 testing and is considering to scale up testing capacity to 100,000 tests per day. The ICMR April 9 also updated its testing strategy for COVID-19.