pune in a first such initiative in pcmc two corporators of dward sent out a message to society office bearers in pimple saudagar and rahatani about the plan to set up free covid19 antigen test labs in housing societiesthe pcmc officials have however said that they are unaware of any such initiativethere must be some confusion because protocol allows for only testing of those patients who are either symptomatic or highrisk contacts said pawan salve chief medical officer pcmchowever according to sources the civic body is keen to test in the most widespread fashion and might allow societies to test enmasse if the office bearers approach the civic bodybe that as it may the first society to avail of this facility said that it has already completed close to 700 tests in two daysthis is a great initiative the first camp was held in pcmc market and we are second large unit to get this done about 15 people have tested positive and they are in home isolation it helps us in preventing the spread and catching people who could spread said santosh maskar chairman roseland residency the over 1000 unit society which availed of this facilityhowever since the message from the two corporators ie ncps nana kate and bjps shatrughna kate the society groups have roared to life again on the benefits of testing and otherwise what is then pcmcs strategy if someone tests positive and what will pcmc do when someone tests negative but needs a rtpcr to confirm that the person is negative asked a society office bearer echoing sentiments of the others many societies have proposed an internal online poll to see if this will benefitroseland residencys secretary anand daptardar said that a negative test reaffirms that the norms that people have been following is correct and so it is a good thing to know and remove the fear factorcorporator nana kate and leader of opposition in pcmc said that the test is being conducted at the behest of pcmc and can be set up for other societies toohowever another corporator from the ward shatrughna kate told toi that this test is only in cases where a bunch of positive patients have been found and not all people will benefit from itmeanwhile pcmc has been testing an average of 3000 samples per day of which at least half are rapid antigen tests a negative outcome from a rapid antigen test needs to be corelated by a repeat test under the rtpcr method