The number of coronavirus cases is setting a daily record in the country because as on July 20, India reported the highest spike in a single day with more than 42,000 cases.
Testing has become essential as the situation in India is increasingly dangerous.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had validated two types of tests for COVID-19 in the country - the RT-PCR tests, and antibody tests. The government has listed out a few private labs that can carry out these tests. Thyrocare is one of those labs that has released data from 60,000 tests.
Thyrocare, a private testing lab, and after testing 53,000 people it has stated that about 15 per cent of people across the country may already been exposed to the novel coronavirus and have immunized against the virus and developed antibodies.
Arokiaswamy Velumani, Managing Director of Thyrocare, shared the data on his twitter handle. He tweeted, "Obviously my tweet, 18 cr Indians already got Antibodies and hence virus is silently and free of cost immunising Indians faster than the western cousins is news. For many optimistic it is happy news. But others asked many questions.Compiled Answers"
On being asked if there are chances of false positives in the COVID-19 antibody tests being used in the country, Dr Velumani told Times Now Digital, "Accredited and organized labs have only 1 per cent chance, while unorganized ones could have 10 to 30%."
The high number of positive antibody tests indicate that people are getting infected without knowing the source. This suggests a community transmission.
Dr Velumani said, "Many say it is too small a data to conclude. Also, everyone has their own view of looking at data. In our samples, we observed 15% positive cases."
Apparently, the UK may have come to the level of herd immunity against the perilous virus, but this situation in India is still in the grey zone.
Dr Velumani, considered the idea of herd immunity as slightly vague and shared his personal opinion, "the virus is silently and fast immunizing."
