Chennai: At a time when it is being claimed that India is doing large number of Covid-19 tests, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan has said the country’s testing rate is low when compared to some of the countries such as Germany, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan that are successfully trying to curb the coronavirus.
She added that without adequate testing, fighting the virus is like “fighting fire blindfolded.”
In an interactive session through video conference, Sowmya Swaminathan said, “India as a whole, the testing rates are much lower compared to some of the countries, who have done well like Germany, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan.”
“Even the United States is testing a huge number of people. So we need to have some benchmark and every public health department needs to have benchmarks on what is the rate of testing per lakh or per million, what is the test positivity rate,” she added.