As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the world, we see many countries opening up to allow movement and sports events for the public. Germany has restarted its Bundesliga football league with strict restrictions, while England is planning to do the same in the first few weeks of June. India has also decided to allow fewer restrictions with air travel (opened on 25th May), despite hitting a new daily hike every day. But is the rise in the number of cases only because of the increased testing? Let’s take a look.
Now, I must mention that I am not an epidemiologist or expert, just someone who has been tracking the rise in cases since the pandemic began, and have a basic knowledge of statistics.
In India, the number of tests per positive case has fluctuated between 20-30 since the lockdown began on 24th March. In comparison to western countries, this number was really high, but what worries me is that the number has stayed stagnant despite the ongoing lockdown. Other countries saw their numbers decrease sometime after a lockdown was enforced, but in India, the number has remained constant and has actually decreased over the last seven days.
Here is data on the number of tests per positive case between 17th May and 24th May (data from Covid19india.org).
19.68384808
18.61714855
16.24162524
16.52418173
19.49179737
17.17233372
15.75555556
17.31412277
So, it’s not just increased testing that has led to more cases; increased testing as well as greater spread of the virus have led to the high numbers.
Here is a graphical representation of the same numbers:
In comparison, the number for other countries increased after which they relaxed their lockdown, unlike in India, where we are opening up despite a decrease in the daily number of tests.
This gives us an idea about how it’s not just about the number of tests we do, but also the number of positives that we find per test. Other countries saw this number decrease and then increase, whereas India is still on the downward trend. This is the time when our government has to make a very important decision between opening up and trying to kickstart the economy, or continuing the lockdown to work towards bringing this number up before we open up.