As India on Monday breached the 7-lakh cases mark, the Union Health Minister on Monday said the national positivity rate of Covid-19 infected patients is 6.73 per cent with Punjab reporting the lowest at 1.92 per cent among eight States and Union Territories (UTs) showing improvement.

The positivity rate is based on the tests per million people.

India tested 10 million samples for the infection in the past five-and-a-half months in the 1,100 laboratories that were identified, upgraded or established across the country for testing.

The Government attributed it to a joint effort of the central as well as the State and UT Governments to effectively manage the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

As part of the coordinated efforts, the ministry said the Union Government emphasised on increasing testing, prompt contact tracing and timely clinical management of the cases.

It has also helped the States to significantly ramp up testing capacities, it said.

“This has resulted in reduced positivity in the country. Currently the national positivity rate stands at 6.73 per cent.”

As per the data collated till July 5, 2020, Puducherry, Chandigarh, Assam, Tripura, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Goa and Punjab with their positivity rates are lesser than the national average and tests per 10 lakh population is higher than the national average.

Among these eight States and UTs, Puducherry is on top with 5.55 per cent positivity rate followed by Chandigargh (4.36 per cent), Assam (2.84 per cent), Tripura (2.27 per cent), Karnataka (2.64 per cent), Rajasthan (2.51 per cent), Goa (2.5 per cent) and Punjab (1.92 per cent).

Tests were ramped up through increased RT-PCR testing along with the new Rapid Antigen Point-of-Care (POC) tests which gives results in only about 30 minutes.

As per the data, the average number of samples being tested per day has increased an average of 18,766 samples per day between July 1 to 5 while it was just 5,481 between June 1 and 5.

In Delhi, despite significantly increased testing, the positivity rate has seen a substantial decrease from about 30 per cent to 10 per cent in the last three weeks.

As per the data, maximum of 44,129 tests per million people have been done so far in Goa followed by Puducherry (12,592 tests), Tripura (10,941), Rajasthan (10,445), Punjab (10,225), Assam (9,987), Chandigarh (9,090) and Karnataka (9,803).

Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, emphasising the need for aggressive testing, tweeted, “We can succeed against #Covid-19 only with 3T strategy of testing, tracing and treating. This is the moment to act, and to act fast.”