Page 33 - ES 2020-21_Volume-1-2 [28-01-21]

16 Economic Survey 2020-21 Volume 1

Treat, Technology. As the first step towards timely identification, prompt isolation & effective
treatment, higher testing was recognized as the effective strategy to limit the spread of infection.
At the onset of the pandemic in January, 2020, India did less than 100 COVID-19 tests per
day at only one lab. However, within a year, 10 lakh tests were being conducted per day at
2305 laboratories. The country reached a cumulative testing of more than 17 crore in January,
2021. The sharp decline in the number of days to add the next cumulative 1 crore tests show
the dedicated efforts to expand the testing infrastructure (Figure 9). The requisite resources of
PPEs, masks and sanitizers were also expanded at a fast pace. The emphasis placed on testing
is corroborated in Figure 10, which shows that States that ramped up the testing facilities were
able to control the spread of COVID-19.

Figure 9: Ramping up Testing Facilities in India

250 10 8 9 10 9 10 9 10 9 11
No of days taken 150 91 27 14 12 10 9 9
200

100

50

0
0.5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Test (Crore)
Source: Data accessed from https://www.Covid19india.org/, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW)
Figure 10: Ramped up Testing Effective in Control of COVID-19

2700 Delhi
2400 Goa

2100 National average 14081 AP Kerala
Cases per Lakh 1500 Sikkim Haryana WB Manipur Karnataka Arun P J&K
1800
Maharashtra
Chhattisgarh
1200
TN
900
Tripura
784
Telangana
600 Nagaland HP Megha Punjab Assam Uttarakhand National average
Rajas
300 Gujarat Mizo
MP UP Jhar Bihar Odisha
0
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000
Test per Lakh
Source: Data accessed from Covid19india.org, MoHFW – data as on 31 December, 2020
st
1.27 The districts across India, based on number of cases and other parameters were classified
into red, yellow and green zones. Across the country, ‘hotspots’ and ‘containment zones’ were