Shillong, Aug 1: Director of Health Services, (MI), Dr. Aman War on Saturday said the health department will go by the first report on the case of a doctor at Bethany Hospital who was tested negative of Covid-19, 24 hours after his sample read positive.
Dr War said that even if the test report the next day is negative the doctor will still be kept under quarantine.
“We stick by that positive case we got in the first sample. Next day if he is tested negative it is good for us, because contact tracing won’t be a concern anymore,” Dr. War said.
He said that if in the first test he got positive it means he has got the virus but the next day when tested again if he is found negative on the instruction of the government contact tracing of that particular case would not be cumbersome anymore.
On the issue of inconsistency of the results, the Director of Health Services said that it depends on the timing of the test.
“So we see the behavior of the virus. Initially you test positive then the next day it disappears it may also mean the immunity in the person concern is also very good strong,” Dr. War said.
He also said that one will never know what is going on since Covid-19 is a new virus and experts are yet to come to a definite conclusion as to how the virus will progress.
“We are not taking it lightly even if cases are negative because we have told even if the second test comes out negative they will still have to go for that quarantine of 14 days and will be retested after 14 days,” he said.
“If one has already tested and wants to get tested again the next day it is the right of every person. But the only thing is that you have to pay for those tests. But for us such persons will tested again after 14 days and tested again 24 hour later and if he is negative he will be declared as recovered,” Dr. War added.
On questions being raised about the collection of sample, the Director of Health Services said that if one collects the sample and tests it and finds a viral load in one of the samples and in the second sample don’t find a viral load, the question on how the sample is being collected does not arise because those samples are collected by professionals who have been trained.
