Testing criteria for Covid-19 likely to be further eased in Mumbai

MUMBAI: The civic administration is likely to relax the testing criteria further in the city after its last decision to allow those above 70 years to get tested without a doctor’s prescription. Daily testing numbers suggest less than 50% of the capacity is being used.


Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said they were thinking of offering relaxations so that more people could get tested. “We are still working out the details. We are thinking of allowing symptomatic persons to get tested directly by producing a self-declaration. However, it’s still being discussed and nothing has been finalised yet,” he said, adding besides allowing senior citizens to get directly tested through a self-declaration, the civic authorities had also allowed testing using e-prescription last week.

The use of antigen kits is also likely to pick up by next week. Kakani said the aim was to carry out up to 2,000 tests daily using the antigen kits. Currently, an average 4,500 tests are being done using RT-PCR.