With over 46,000 COVID tests, Pune district did most testing in Maharashtra last week
Sumit Singh
Pune, 15 July 2020: There has been a rapid increase in the number of Coronavirus Disease (COVID19) patients in Pune district. The total number of positive cases has reached about 45,000 in the district which includes COVID cases of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and Pune rural areas.
PMC Additional Commissioner Rubal Agarwal said, “Last week PMC did 30555 tests and overall Pune district did 46718 tests. As per the state government data, Pune did more COVID testing than Mumbai (38000) and Thane (35000).” 
Pune city has reported 11,262 COVID-19 cases just in the past two weeks according to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The total number of Coronavirus cases in the city as of July 13 were 28,375 and 39% of these total cases were reported within the past two weeks.
Rapid ascension in the Coronavirus cases in the city has forced the district administration to re-impose a lockdown. The lockdown was re-imposed on Tuesday and will last till July 23. Due to the increase in cases, the civic body has started using rapid antigen detection kits to increase the capacity for testing COVID-19 patients.
Agarwal further said, “There has been ward wise percentage increase. We are planning to focus on 3- I’s – identification of suspected patients, increase contact tracing and testing and increase in dedicated COVID beds.”
The highest surge in COVID-19 cases in the city has been reported from- Kothrud, Karvenagar, Warje, Bavdhan, Mundhwa, Hadapsar, Kondhwa, Sahakarnagar and Dhankawadi.
