Rahul Gandhi asks govt to 'clear bottlenecks', scale up COVID-19 tests to 1 lakh per day

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday recommended mass random testing to beat COVID-19 in India, stating that the government must scale up it's testing from the existing 40,000 to one lakh tests per day. He also suggested that Prime Minister Modi should act fast and clear the bottleneck to conduct mass tests.

A total of 26,496 confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in India, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Sunday and 824 people have lost their lives due to the virus in the country.

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Deliver COVID-19 tests to homes via drones

With the view to contain the spread of Coronavirus, a study suggested that COVID-19 tests should be delivered to people's homes using drones. According to reports, researchers from Sweden who are modeling the impact of drone-based test delivery suggested that 36 drones each carrying 100 tests could visit every one in a city with a population of around 100,000 repeatedly every four days. They also suggested that running tests of individuals every 30 days would flatten the curve. 

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According to the researchers, the Coronavirus tests do not have to be conducted at a designated facility. Giving out a possible solution, they stated that drones can be used to distribute the tests to the people, as well as to collect them and bring them to the laboratories. They added that the lab test results can be given to people electronically. 

However, according to them, a general lack of regulation around drone flights is a major obstacle to implementing drone-based test delivery. The researchers suggested that the authorities could design a set of regulations with different levels of strictness. 

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