COVID-19 in Mumbai: NMMC covers 69 buildings in six days

Health workers testing a resident of Navi Mumbai

Navi Mumbai's door-to-door testing has turned out to be a gamechanger with 69 housing societies having been covered in six days. Of the 6,999 residents got tested, 325 returned positive.

Antigen tests, which were introduced in mid-July, crossed the 50,000 mark within 30 days.

Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) officials believe that aggressive testing is helping to keep tabs on the pandemic and its spread.

NMMC started door-to-door antigen tests on August 10 to intensify testing in Containment Zones.

"We started antigen testing across our 22 centres. But many people were either reluctant or had some difficulty with the prospect of getting tested. So we came up with door-to-door testing with the help of six trucks to first educate people and 34 vans to conduct the tests," said Abhijeet Bangar, NMMC commissioner.

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'Don't want loopholes'

"Those who have some 'COVID like' symptoms but are showing negative in antigen test results are getting RT-PCR tests done as we don't want these small loopholes in testing and tracing," Bangar said.