Karnataka to increase COVID-19 testing to 5,000 a day, issues guidelines for genome sequencing

Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Department increases testing and Whole Genome Sequencing to prepare for COVID-19 upsurge.

The State has decided to increase testing and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) of positive cases, as it gears up to navigate a possible COVID-19 upsurge again due to the JN.1 subvariant prevalent in the neighbouring State of Kerala. 

“Presently, the number of COVID-19 tests being conducted in the State is very low. We have decided to increase testing to 5,000 a day,” said D. Randeep, Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare. Guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to all the States on Monday, December 18, recommended “ensuring adequate testing in all districts as per COVID-19 guidelines and maintaining RT PCR and RAT tests ratio”. 

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is scheduled to hold a meeting with all the State governments through a video conferencing on Wednesday morning (December 20). 

The State government has for one restarted the daily COVID-19 health bulletin on Tuesday, December 19, which showed 44 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the State in the last 24 hours. With 35 patients discharged in the last 24 hours, there are a total of 79 active cases in the State as of Tuesday, the bulletin said. 

Since the Department of Health and Family Welfare hasn’t released data of cases reported during the previous few days, it is difficult to say whether there has been an uptick or not. 

However, the bulletin showed that the State has only conducted 722 tests — 487 RT PCR tests and 235 RAT tests — in the last 24 hours and 44 tested positive, with a high positivity rate of 6.09%. 

In the active cases, 62 are in home isolation, 17 cases are admitted to hospital, while six people are in ICU and 11 are taking treatment in isolation beds, stated in the department bulletin.