Somebody tell him the US is doing 120,000 tests a DAY

Italy has conducted 620,000 tests

The notion that testing is panecea for covid is flawed logic (see thread)

The reason why this is propagated is of course to show how despite all available data we have royally screwed up https://twitter.com/sardesairajdeep/status/1246649834196496384

Testing - a thread

Why is testing important

It is important NOT because that person can be cured

There is no cure for CORONA for mild symptoms

Only if you get serious symptoms does hospitalisation with breathing support help

In fact the ONLY advise for people who have CORONA but are not serious is self quarantine. Home is as good as hospital

The reason testing is important is that you / govt KNOW that you have Corona

You can then isolate and not spread to others

If we are already locked down, as now, testing has little impact, as we already in semi self quarantine environment

In fact knowing you have corona might even panic you and put stress on system to detriment

It however has marginal benefit in 2 ways

Semi self isolation still means limited contact
Family members are still in contact

So.. In Indian environment, even if we accept lesser benefits, what's the harm in testing more

A) umm... The biggest source of infection in Italy was from hospitals. There is high probability you will get CORONA while getting tested in hospital
You need seperate testing locatons

B) There is no TRUE one of time test yet ( look at Kanika Kapoor)
One negative DOES NOT mean negative
In fact assuming you will test a reasonable high probability case, one negative and him feeling he doesn't have corona, when he actually has, can be more dangerous

C) Our hospitals are better of not undergoing testing stress, but on recovery, till we are better prepared

This is the buy yourself time argument

In the west, widespread testing is being recommended coz
A) they DON'T have lockdown
More testing prevents say a corona carrier from getting onto the NYC subway
B) they need to test to see if they are getting BETTER (Lower new cases to testing ratio), since situation is so bad

In India, we have tested 80,000 (all high risk cases)

Out of that only 3000 are positive. Thats 4%

That's one of the lowest ratios in the world

Out of the 3000 nearly 85% is either foreign returned, direct close contact (has spent mutiple hrs w/ patient) or doctors

If there was an huge undiscovered layer, 100k tests in high risk areas would have uncovered

Also you can hide infected. You can't hide the dead

The dead would have started showing in the hospitals

Also we are building infrastructure so we can test safely more

Till that time, what we are doing is perfect

A) one of the world best tracing programme. If patient tests positive, aggressively contact and eliminate all he might have come in contact with

B) isolate clusters if and when they develop ( Nizamuddin / Bhilwara / Punjab preacher)

We have been VERY SUCCESSFUL in both

In short, most of of WAT people (WAT - What about testing) have no clue and find testing a convenient stick to either beat MODI govt or sensationalise headline

Also as side note, the NUMBER 1 reason Germany has low deaths is that if corona causes an existing pre health condition to deteriorate, they mark death as that (not corona)

To compare German deaths with others, multiply by 7-8x