bengaluru the health and family welfare department has reduced the daily statewide covid testing target from 1 lakh to 70000 a circular in this regard was issued on january 30 and it cites suggestions of the state technical advisory committee on covid19stoi has a copy of the circular which lists revised targets for all districts bengaluru urban district will aim for 23135 tests a day the new guidelines prescribe rtpcr tests through a pooling method for everyone barring those with influenzalike illness ili and severe acute respiratory infection sari and asymptomatic primary contacts of covid19 patientsprimary health centres phcs across bengaluru have reduced the number of rtpcr tests from 1000 to 100 stoi visited some phcs in rajarajeshwari nagar and bommanahalli zones where testing numbers have dropped madhukar a lab technician at the konanakunte phc said that the focus had shifted towards vaccination till november we used to collect nearly 300 swab samples at our phc the number has now dropped below 100 there are two reasons the vaccination drive and the decreasing number of patients he added rajendra cholan special commissioner for health said that covid19 tests were largely sought by students and teaching and nonteaching staff very few people are exhibiting the symptoms of covid19 many people have developed antibodies after recovering from the infection he saidaccording to the data accessed by stoi of the more than 23000 tests conducted in bengaluru every day 2571 are rapid antigen ones and 20564 are rtpcr ones except for ili and sari cases swab samples will be sent for pool testing confirmed bhaskar rajakumar nodal officer bbmp covid war room there will be a delay in the results because of pooling our focus is divided between the vax drive and covid19 testing