Even as the BMC emphasised on doing more tests and getting results in 24 hours, earlier this month, the same does not seem to be happening on the ground. Sources attributed this to overburdened labs and a delayed turnaround time of reports. A civic official said, “There could be multiple reasons for the drop in numbers — either there are more asymptomatic people who are not getting tested or laboratories may be stretched amid the pressure to give reports within 24 hours. When there is a higher number of tests, a delay is noticed in getting reports. This further delays treatment.”

However, experts claimed that the focus needs to be on Test Positivity Rate (TPR) as it has to be below five per cent. However, currently, it is hovering around 15 per cent. TPR is the number of positives per 100 tests. Experts of the state task force said that the city is far from its target of achieving a TPR below five.

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Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the State Task Force, too, had told mid-day that it was important to focus on the TPR, which was 28 per cent earlier this month.

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No. of tests on April 13, the highest test tally for city so far