New Delhi: While Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has been admitted to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram to be treated for COVID-19, health authorities in the district have been dissuading people with symptoms from getting tested.Recently, a resident of an apartment complex in Sector 56 tested positive for COVID-19. His wife Sonia, whose name has been changed to protect identity, grew concerned: there was a good chance she was infected as well, but her worries were directed at her elderly in-laws, who stayed in the same house.The wife got herself tested and the result was ‘positive’. But Sonia was surprised when local health authorities reprimanded her for taking the test without their permission. She said a health worker even called her to say that her seniors would take her to task.When Sonia’s sister, who resides in the same sector and had spent a day with her recently, began showing symptoms of COVID-19 infection, she wished to be tested as well. But health authorities intervened again, and said testing was not required.Finally, at the intervention of the CMO, the tests on Sonia’s sister and brother-in-law were done late on Thursday afternoon.Also read: Is It Possible to Get COVID-19 Twice?It remains unclear why Gurugram’s health authorities are discouraging residents from getting themselves tested – especially at a time when the national refrain has been the opposite, with governments making tests more accessible.It’s important to consider the possibility that Gurugram wishes to under-report COVID-19 cases. The district currently ranks among Haryana’s worst hit, with 12,113 cases as on September 1 (1,048 active) and 133 deaths.As Dr Dileep Mavalankar, director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, wrote for The Wire Science, people choosing to quarantine themselves at home because they don’t want to be separated from their families is one reason why the number of cases is not a good predictor of the COVID-19 epidemic’s progress.However, if it is playing out in reverse in Gurugram, the situation here may seem on paper to be rosier than it really is on ground.Also read: Are Health Experts Right to Focus on Cutting COVID-19 Deaths, Not Containment?The district’s health authorities have admitted that the number of cases has only been rising. According to them, the city has been adding 1.1% more cases every subsequent day since August 27 – up from 0.87% on August 7. District surveillance officer Jai Prakash Sharma was quoted as saying that almost 2,000 tests were being conducted per day.If citizens at risk or those showing symptoms aren’t being tested, the volume of tests could be an eyewash.But when contacted, Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer of Gurugram, said, “This is an aberration and I will have it looked into. In fact, there are clear instructions to the health workers to conduct tests on close contacts of all positive cases.”All susceptible persons being tested in GhaziabadIn Ghaziabad, another of Delhi’s satellite townships, health authorities seem to be approaching testing differently. When Rohit Gupta, a resident of Indirapuram, tested positive in July, authorities quickly tested all members of his family. Only his wife’s result came back ‘positive’; thereafter, the couple was treated in a private hospital.Ghaziabad is one of Uttar Pradesh’s more affected districts vis-à-vis COVID-19. But its authorities have assumed a targeted approach to arresting the novel coronavirus’s spread. District magistrate Ajay Pandey recently said that even as the number of cases was increasing in different areas, authorities were deploying “increased surveillance and testing”. According to him, 3,000-3,500 tests are being conducted per day.Also read: Gujarat Points to ‘Non-COVID-19 Deaths’ as Reason Behind Unusual Data DisparityHindustan Times reported last week that random testing and testing people with symptoms of influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory illness had helped track down nearly 40% of all people with COVID-19 since March.Meanwhile, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain had penned a letter to Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla last week accusing the Ministry of Home Affairs of pressuring state government officials to stall proposed increases in COVID-19 tests.The letter followed a note by Delhi’s principal secretary of health, stating that the views of an expert panel in Delhi had to be taken into account for technical guidance on various issues, including a mix of RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests, areas and demographics.Also read: With 83,883 New Cases, India Registers Sharpest Single-Day SpikeBut the ministry dismissed the allegations, and said the number of daily tests had been increased at its behest from 4,000 until mid-June to around 18,000-20,000. At the same time, the Delhi high court noted on August 31 that while the number of rapid antigen tests had increased, the number of RT-PCR has been stagnating around 5,000-6,000 per day for a while now. Rapid antigen tests have a high false-negatives rate and as such are much less reliable for diagnostic purposes.The court also directed the Delhi government to set up testing centres at interstate bus termini within a week, in order to test migrant workers expected to return from their homes in various states for work in the national capital.