COVID-19 positivity rate drops as India scales up coronavirus testing capacity

New Delhi, Oct 30: Union health ministry on Friday said that India has "exponentially scaled" up its coronavirus testing capacity from one in January to more than 106.5 million at present. "The very high testing has resulted in the continuously falling positivity rate. It is 7.54 per cent presently," the ministry said.

According to the health ministry, the cumulative positivity rate of coronavirus disease has been falling progressively as testing has increased and it has touched 7.54 per cent as of October 29. Nearly 10 million were conducted in the last nine days and the daily positivity rate stands at 4.64 per cent.

It can be seen that the declining trend of active COVID-19 cases is supported by a rising number of recovered cases. The total recovered cases have crossed 7.3 million. The gap between recovered cases and active cases has crossed 6.7 million.

On Thursday, India's tally of the novel coronavirus disease crossed the eight million-mark as the country logged nearly 50,000 new infections in the last 24 hours, taking its tally to 8,040,203. The death toll rose to 120,527 with 517 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

It can be seen that Maharashtra contributed the maximum with more than 8,000 single day recoveries followed by Kerala with more than 7,000 recoveries. While Kerala has reported 6,260 recovered cases, Delhi has witnessed at least 4,128 recovered cases.

West Bengal has reported 3,825 cured cases of the coronavirus disease, Tamil Nadu has seen 3,850 recovered cases and at least 3,609 people got discharged from hospital in Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh has reported 2,742 recovered cases, Rajasthan has reported 2,016 cases, and Odisha with 2,015 recovered cases.