MUMBAI: A day after the Union government's latest directive on Covid, state health officials announced on Wednesday that all Covid-positive samples would be sent for genome sequencing. The practice so far was to take up random positive samples for sequencing, but there has been such a drop in positivity rates that the state has decided to sequence all samples that test positive.
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Coronavirus Live Updates"The total number of samples undergoing genome sequencing may slightly increase, but we want to be cautious," said state surveillance officer Dr Pradip Awate.
From roughly 65,000 positive cases a day in May 2021, the state's daily tally has dropped below 50 on most days this December. In Mumbai, where daily cases are less than 10 now, additional civic commissioner (health) Dr Sanjeev Kumar said all positive samples would be sequenced.
Earlier in the day, health minister Tanaji Sawant held a meeting with all health officials where the need to 'trace, test and treat' cases was once again reiterated. State officials said there is no need to panic as cases are at an all-time low. "The number of Covid cases in the state decreased by 30% as compared to last week," said state surveillance officer Dr Pradip Awate.
He said the BF.7 variant, which is causing the present epidemic in China, has been isolated in India, but not in Maharashtra: "We had a few cases in Gujarat in September, but the variant never spread widely in India."
In the meeting, it was decided to focus on increasing coverage for the precautionary vaccine dose.
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