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Kolkata: Labs across Kolkata are witnessing a slight drop in the positivity rate of COVID this week as compared to last week, when the rate went up to 70% in a few days.
However, even after a climb, Kolkata’s positivity rate is still in the 50%-55% range this week, with the city reporting over 6,500 cases every day.
The positivity rate in laboratories in the three AMRI units has come down by around 12% in the last few days and is currently between 50%-55%. Narayan Laboratories has also seen a similar decline. “Last week, the positivity was around 67%, but it has gradually declined over the past few days and is currently around 55%,” said R Venkatesh, regional director (east), Narayana Health. Simardeep Gill, CEO of CK Birla Hospital, said the positivity rate in the hospital’s laboratory was over 50% a week ago. “It has come down to 20 per cent in the last two days. There has also been a drop in hospital admissions,” Gill said.
In government labs, positivity ranges between 40% and 50% this week, when many, including NICED, reported 65% positivity last week.
Health experts say that this could be the beginning of a ray of hope for Kolkata, but have warned not to take any laxity in it. He believes that this trend needs to continue for at least a week or 10 days for the correct picture to emerge.
“This may indicate local and temporary herd immunity. At 70% positivity, we can assume another 10% of unreported positive cases, so there is a possibility of herd immunity against Omicron, which is now dominant. But we are yet to Don’t know how long this immunity will last. So we cannot let our guard down by any means,” said Dipendra Sarkar, professor at IPGMER and member of the Covid Task Force.
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The average positivity rate in our laboratory in the last three to four days is about 50%. A gradual decline started from Monday. But since it is around four to five days, we need to follow this trend for at least a week,” said Bhaskar Narayan Choudhary, microbiologist at Peerless Hospital.
Kolkata’s positivity rate was 58.9% between January 7 and January 13, the highest among all metro cities, according to data from the Union Health Ministry. State health department officials said this weekly report covered at least three days last week when several city laboratories reported nearly 70% positivity.
A senior health department official said, “The rate for Kolkata should come down in the next weekly positivity report. Even the transmission rate is very high and we are planning all possible strategies to bring it down.” ”
Alok Roy, president of Medica Group of Hospitals, said that earlier people with mild symptoms or even asymptomatic contacts of confirmed cases turned up to take the Covid test, most of them turning positive. Now, many symptomatic patients are also not getting tested and this could be one of the reasons for the low positivity rate. Most of the people with symptoms are also those whose symptoms persist for two-three days, they are coming to get their swab samples tested.
Bhaskar Narayan Choudhary said, “Also, we are coming across many people to report for travel or back to work and most of them are coming negative. This could also be another reason for less positivity ”
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