SHILLONG, June 8: The COVID-19 cases in Meghalaya continued its downward slide with the daily caseload coming down below the 400-mark after 31 days. The active tally has also come down below the 5,000-mark after 22 days.
The state recorded 379 fresh cases while 773 recoveries on the day brought the active tally down to 4,924.
East Khasi Hills reported 149 cases on Wednesday, followed by 52 in West Garo Hills, 40 in West Jaintia Hills, 36 in North Garo Hills, 24 in South West Garo Hills, 23 in South West Khasi Hills, 15 in East Garo Hills, 14 in West Khasi Hills, 10 in East Jaintia Hills, nine in Ri Bhoi and seven in South Garo Hills.
Out of the 773 recoveries, 371 were recorded in East Khasi Hills, 142 in Ri Bhoi, 83 in West Garo Hills, 51 in South West Garo Hills, 39 in East Jaintia Hills, 27 in West Jaintia Hills, 16 each in North Garo Hills and West Khasi Hills, 14 in East Garo Hills, 11 in South West Khasi Hills and three in South Garo Hills.
Nine deaths in the last 24 hours took the death toll to 678. Six fatalities were recorded in East Khasi Hills, two in West Khasi Hills and one in West Jaintia Hills. The case fatality stands at 1.71%.
The state has so far conducted 6,04,628 tests out of which 5,65,093 have turned out negative.
However, the state seems too heavily dependent on Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) which has been under scrutiny for not being 100 per cent accurate.
The weekly district-wise positivity rates in Meghalaya reveal that the state is conducting more RAT even though RT-PCR is considered to be the confirmatory test.
As per the data, 95% of the tests conducted in North Garo Hills were RAT and the positivity rate here is 42.86. In West Jaintia Hills 66% of tests conducted were RAT and the positivity rate is 37.30.
In Ri Bhoi, 56% of tests were RAT and the positivity rate is 34.65.
Even in East Khasi Hills, which is the Covid hotspot, 55% of all tests conducted were RAT and the positivity rate is 31.42.
In East Garo Hills and South West Khasi Hills, 100% of tests conducted were RAT while in South Garo Hills and West Khasi Hills it was 99%. In West Garo Hills, 91% of the tests conducted were RAT.
The COVID-19 dashboard of Meghalaya Government says that so far, 6,04,628 tests have been conducted in Meghalaya out of which 3,88,418 were RAT while the number of RT-PCR tests was 1,81,877. The total percentage of antigen tests in Meghalaya stands at 64.2%.
Antigen devices (RAT) return results in about 15 minutes compared to hours for the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method, a laboratory-based process which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the “gold standard here” for COVID-19 detection.
