Odisha ramps up COVID-19 testing to 50,000 tests per day, intends to increase further

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], Aug 17 : Odisha government has ramped up COVID-19 testing to more than 50,000 tests per day and intended to further increase the testing number in a phased manner.
On August 16, Odisha was positioned at fourth number in the country with 50,421 tests.
In terms of tests per million per day, Odisha was leading the country with 1,096 tests per million per day, among the large states category. The national average was 542 tests per million per day. The testing rate in Odisha is double the national average and ahead of states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala etc, stated the press release.
On this, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has expressed satisfaction on the fact that state government has conducted more than 1 lakh Covid tests within the last 2 days, further strengthening our fight against the pandemic. The positivity rate has drastically come down while the fatality rate is among the lowest in the country.
The Chief Minister further said that with intensive contact tracing and enhancement of testing capacity, COVID-19 positivity rate has drastically declined in Odisha from around 10.78 per cent in July to 5.2 per cent in August. He said that the government has focused on further augmentation of care and testing facilities.