Covid-19: Are we testing enough? Here's how India fares versus others

A look at how India compares with other countries in confirmed coronavirus cases as a proportion of tests carried out

The global tally of Covid-19-positive cases now stands at over 1.5 million, and the number of fatalities is nearly 83,000. With countries upping their testing capabilities to stem a surge in coronavirus infections, more than 11 million tests have been conducted across the globe so far.
 
India has conducted around 160,000 tests (as on April 8), according to ICMR data. And the country’s tally of positive cases stands at 6,237 (at 6 pm on April 9) – implying 3.8 per cent of the tests yielded positive results for coronavirus.

The US, by comparison, has conducted 2.2 million tests – the most among all countries – and seen a fifth of all those tests throwing up positive results.
 

  
Among other countries that have been hit badly by the pandemic, the ratio of infections to tests conducted is the highest in Iran. Its tally of positive cases currently stands at over 64,000, which is 31 per cent of the 200,000 Covid-19 tests it has conducted.
 
Iran is followed by Belgium and France. In Belgium, around 26 per cent of all who were tested turned out to be infected. France had conducted over 200,000 tests as on April 2 (the latest available data), and it had 59,000 confirmed cases – a ratio of 26.4 per cent.

 
Germany, which is among the countries with very high numbers for Covid-19 tests conducted, had seen only 5.6 per cent of the samples yielding positive results as on April 1 (the latest available data on tests conducted by that country).

 
For Spain, the ratio stands at 7.2 per cent, with 300,000 tests and around 25,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases as on March 21. Spain’s current tally of cases is 150,000, but it has not reported the number of tests conducted since March 21.
 

 
Tests per capita
 
The number of tests conducted by India is lower than other countries on a per-capita-ratio basis. With a population of around 1.38 billion, India’s Covid-19 tests per 10,000 population has been merely 0.04.
 
Spain has the highest number of tests per capita among top-10 countries by tests conducted – 18.3 per 10,000 population. It is followed by Italy, with 15.8 tests per 10,000 population. The per-capita test ratios for both Germany and the UK stand at around eight per 10,000 population. 
 
The US tops the charts with most number of tests carried out, but it stands much lower in per-capita testing ratio – 1.2 tests per 10,000 people. South Korea and Russia both fare even worse than the US, each with a ratio of 0.6 tests per 10,000 population. The case tally for both countries currently stands at over 10,000, even as they have flattened their growth rates for new cases.