“Testing, vigorous testing is the key to defeating the pandemic” – that was the World Health Organisation's motto as half the globe was wading in the dark when the COVID pandemic broke out in 2020. Yet, a year later, it seems that India's testing hasn't been able to keep up with the second wave of COVID.
In the first wave, India managed to dramatically amplify its daily tests from some 38,000 tests at the beginning of June 2020 to at least 10 lakh daily tests by August. Comparatively, during the second wave, when the country has been adding one or two lakh cases daily, we've conducted less than 20 lakh tests a day for the majority of April and May.