Pune COVID-19 case doubling rate now 9 days: Civic chief

Pune, Apr 28 () Pune municipal officials on Tuesdaysaid the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases in the city was ninedays, and the seven-day span mentioned by an inter-ministerialcentral team earlier was based on data taken six days ago.

The ICMT had visited Pune on Monday and had said thenumber of days in which cases were doubling was seven, a ratehigher than that in the national scenario.

"The data taken by ICMT was of six day ago. We areimproving. While the Central team was here, the doubling rateimproved to eight days and as of now, the number of days ittakes for COVID-19 cases to double is nine," Pune MunicipalCommissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said.

"Over the last three days, the number of cases beingreported is also coming down. On Saturday, the number of casesreported in Pune city was 107. It was 94 the day beforeyesterday. On Monday, it was still lower at 72," he added.

He said the ratio between testing and positive caseswas 9:1, adding that the emphasis was on "accurate and focusedtesting", especially in hotspots.

"Testing has to be focused and targeted and not justfor the sake of it. For example, if there are 10 closecontacts of a COVID-19 patient and two of them have nosymptoms, then the duo's tests are not taken then," heexplained.

"The reason they are not tested at the time is thatthe result may be negative. However, there is a chance theymay test positive for the virus in five to six days as this ishow the virus behaves. People test positive after seven daysfrom the day they get the infection," he said. SPKBNM BNM