Despite Centre’s advisory amid a spike in Covid-19 cases in India, testing rate in states remain low.

Experts here on Monday said that while mass testing may not be practical looking at the logistics, it may help understand the exact cause of the respiratory illnesses currently seen across the country.

According to Union Health Ministry data, India recorded a single-day rise of 628 new Covid-19 cases while the active caseload jumped to 4,054. The total fatalities were recorded at 5,33,334 with one new death reported from Kerala in the previous 24 hours, the data updated at 8 a.m. showed.

As per a recent survey conducted by LocalCircles, only 1 in 9 Indians with Covid symptoms are taking a RT-PCR test.

It noted that due to this India runs the risk of late identification of JN.1 variant in communities which can be an issue if it is causing severe disease in some people.

“Testing is not commonly done at all in India, because of many reasons. One, the public appears to think that the pandemic has gone away completely and will not come back. A good percentage of doctors also appear to believe that as well,” Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman of the National Indian Medical Association Covid Task Force, said.

“Secondly, Covid is no longer perceived as a threat as it used to be after vaccination covered most of the country, the severity of the disease came down significantly,” he added.