Coronavirus: NSW Health data reveals massive drop in testing
The number of COVID-19 tests being carried out across NSW has dropped by more than 60 per cent in the past week. See the stats for your community here.
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New locations — and ways of being tested — may have been introduced across the state this week, but the number of COVID-19 tests being conducted has dropped by more than half in a week.
Exclusive NSW Health data obtained by NewsLocal revealed the number of people actively seeking testing across the state decreased from 5592 tests on March 31 to just 2108 on April 6.
In the South Eastern Sydney region — where cases spiked to 615 on Monday — the number of tests conducted at clinics decreased from 626 to 304, meanwhile in Northern Sydney the number of tests being carried out to residents dropped more than 70 per cent in the last week from 1004 tests conducted on March 31 to just 297 by April 6.
Sydney Local Health District recorded a drop in the number of tests from 349 to just 192 over the past week,while the Central Coast also saw decreases in the number of tests being conducted from 341 last Tuesday to just 76 on Monday this week.
Despite calls for an increase in testing across the Nepean and Blue Mountains Local Health District by NSW Health following an increase in community transmission, the region saw just 62 tests conducted on Monday this week in comparison to 203 carried out seven days prior.
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Western Sydney also saw a massive reduction — with 608 carried out on Tuesday last week while just 260 were conducted on Monday.While neighbours in South West Sydney saw testing drop from 576 to 253 in the same time frame.
The Illawarra also dropped from 205 to just 80.
In the Hunter and New England region, testing dropped from a massive 862 to 206, while the Murrumbidgee Local Health District recorded a decrease from 113 tests conducted to just 47.
A NSW Health spokeswoman said there were more than 100 location for concerned people to be tested, including a series of new drive-through locations such as Belmont Hospital in Lake Macquarie, Manning Base Hospital and Bondi Beach.
“To date, 129,091 people have been tested for COVID-19 across the state, and 126,357 of those have been excluded,” she said.
There are a total of 60 NSW Health-run assessment clinics, while the remainder are privately run.
The spokeswoman said drive-through facilities can be set up as “quickly as demand dictates but our priority will always be to direct health resources where they are most needed”.