Covid-19 Testing: Most people uninterested to get tested

As the number of Covid-19 tests across the country yesterday dropped to a record in recent times, about 54 percent respondents -- mostly doctors -- of a survey said people were not going for tests due to unavailability and inaccessibility of the testing facilities.

Only 10,625 tests were carried out across the country yesterday, according to health directorate.

Considering the recent declining trend of daily tests, a total of 1,202 people -- of whom around 85 percent were doctors -- responded to eight specific questions online.

"This survey was not conducted following a strict survey method. It, however, reflects the opinion of a significant number of physicians who have been dealing with patients every day during this pandemic," Prof Ridwanur Rahman, an infectious disease specialist who conducted the survey told The Daily Star.

Some 16 percent of the respondents said social stigma and late or unreliable test reports were to blame for the decline in test number while five percent pointed finger at the unsafe sample collection.

Other reasons mentioned by the respondents include cost for the test, decreasing trend of daily cases, and confusion over whether to be tested or not.

The number of daily Covid-19 tests yesterday was the lowest in July.

On July 1, a total of 17,875 samples were tested and it rose to the highest 18,362 on the following day.

Since then, the number of daily tests has been declining.

"Human resource shortage and people's unwillingness to be tested are among the main reasons behind the low number of tests," Prof Nasima Sultana, additional director general of the DGHS, told this newspaper recently.

Experts, however, said, the authorities need to motivate people to get tested.

"When the DGHS and the health ministry are busy in a blame game, it is no wonder that the situation has taken such a turn," Prof Nazrul Islam, member of the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, told The Daily Star recently.

During yesterday's briefing, Prof Nasima Sultana informed that 37 more people died of Covid-19 while 2,459 new cases were reported.

With this, the death toll rose to 2,618 while the total number of confirmed cases reached 204,525 -- around 19.89 percent of all tests done so far since January 21.

Yesterday, the positivity rate was 23.14 percent, according to the DGHS.

A total of 1,546 Covid-19 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours till 8:30am yesterday, taking the tally to 1,11,642 -- around 54.59 percent of all confirmed cases.

The death rate was at 1.28 percent as of yesterday.

Among those who died yesterday, 29 were males and eight were female.

Of them, 15 were from Dhaka, eight from Chattogram, two from Sylhet, three from Rajshahi, seven from Khulna and one each from Mymensingh and Rangpur division.

One of them was aged between 21 and 30 years, one between 31 and 40, three between 41 and 50, six between 51 and 60, 20 between 61 and 70, four between 71 and 80, one between 81 and 90 and another was over 90 years old.