So why did you guys stop testing and reporting
Although it was an off topic post in that thread, so let me make it clear to you Indians here who are influenced by your media. I really feel sorry for the guys who make fun of Pakistan and Pakistanis of twitter when it comes to covid testing and reporting. What you have written is exactly what you have been told by your media, which is in complete control of your government.
Your cases are 180 times more than Pakistan. What this means is that Pakistan has to do much less contact tracing and testing and the number of tests that you are performing are still very very less considering the number of cases with respect to Pakistan. In simple words, if you are experiencing 180 times more positive cases, you have to do contact tracing and testing of 180 times more suspected patients than Pakistan. Is your testing 180 times of the Pakistani tests? Lets see..
Pakistan conducted 23,500 tests (mostly PCR) of which 415 came positive. The positivity ratio is merely 1.8%.
Your cases are 75000/ 900,000 tests (mostly antigen tests which are not recommended by experts but lets consider them too in the calculations for now). The positivity ratio is 8.3%.
You guys should have conducted 23,500 x 180 = 4.2 million tests (still I have not considered positivity ratio and the number of antibody tests you conduct to achieve the target).
So in fact, Pakistan's testing ratio, considering the number of cases and the positivity ratio is much better than you. We have very very less patients left in the hospital. Many hospitals are now almost free of covid patients. Still we are conducting 23,500 tests (56 times more than the reported positive), while you are doing only 12 times the postive cases being reported. If your government understands this, it might take better decisions.
Why Pakistan was able to control the situation? Your media acknowledged our reasoning as:
"The reason behind arresting the rise in Covid-19 cases lies in the country’s increased testing capacity in a very short period and setting up a sophisticated tracking system, which included over 10,000 contract workers and more than 3,000 contact tracing teams on the ground. Besides, strict lockdowns in hotspots and hefty fines for violations also played a role."
So yes, Pakistan increased the testing capacity in the beginning. That coupled with smart lockdown really made the difference.
That's why
"WHO appreciates Pakistan's efforts in battling Covid-19", while you are being asked to do more.
Now lets come to the point of testing. BBC reported 4 days back that
"India is turning to faster tests to meet targets".
India carried out more than one million coronavirus tests on 21 August, realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pledge to ramp up tests to one million a day. It fell to 801,147 and 609,917 tests in the next two days.
But how did India achieve this, and are the tests being used reliable?
While boosting testing is regarded as a key part of the battle against the coronavirus, it's the type of testing which experts say is causing concern.
The one that's been most commonly used globally is a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, which isolates genetic material from a swab sample.
These are regarded as the gold standard of testing, but they're the most expensive in India and take up to eight hours to process the samples. To produce a result may take up to a day, depending on the time taken to transport samples to labs.
In order to increase testing capacity, the Indian authorities have been switching over to a cheaper and quicker method called a rapid antigen test, more globally known as diagnostic or rapid tests.
These isolate proteins called antigens that are unique to the virus, and can give a result in 15 to 20 minutes.
But these tests are less reliable, with an accuracy rate in some cases as low as 50%, and were originally meant to be used in virus hotspots and healthcare settings.
India's top medical research body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has approved the use of three antigen tests developed in South Korea, India and Belgium.
But one of these was independently evaluated by the ICMR and the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which found that their accuracy in giving a true negative result ranged between 50% and 84%.
We've looked at data from 29 June to 28 July, which shows Delhi conducted a total of 587,590 tests, of which 63% were antigen tests.
But the available data shows that less than 1% of those who tested negative in an antigen test went on to have a PCR test, and 18% of those who did tested positive.
