As India copes with COVID-19, several states report lower positivity rates than national average

The national COVID-19 positivity rate was found to be 6.73% in India, while many states have reported even lower positivity rates, showing that the number of people testing positive in the country has declined by more than significantly over the past month, possibly due to official efforts to cut the spread of the coronavirus infection.

The positivity rate indicates the number of specimens that turn out positive per hundred samples tested every day. Central efforts have led to a significant jump in the testing rate in the national capital, New Delhi, while the positivity rate here has declined as well.

Efforts of increased testing, contact tracing, and clinical management of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases have helped in reduced positivity rate.

As per data available on July 5, 2020, the states where the positivity rate is less than the national average and tests per million are higher than the national average are:

In Delhi, the average number of samples being tested per day which was only 5,481 during the period between June 1-5, has witnessed a huge increase to reach an average of 18,766 samples tested per day now, between July 1-5. Therefore the testing rate has more than tripled over the span of one month. 

In spite of the significantly increased testing in Delhi, the positivity rate has seen a substantial decrease from about 30% to 10% in the last three weeks.