India onMonday reported nearly 600 fewer cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19)than Sunday even as the country’s infection tally went up to 27,892, the Unionhealth ministry’s data showed.

There were1,396 new cases of Covid-19 and 48 deaths in the last 24 hours as PrimeMinister Narendra Modi is scheduled to interact with chief ministers in a videoconference that is expected to focus on the next move in India’s battle planagainst Covid-19.

According tothe Union health ministry dashboard at 8am, there are 20,835 active Covid-19cases and 381 more people, or 6,184 so far, have been cured or discharged fromhospitals in the last 24 hours. The country’s death toll so far is 872.

The PrimeMinister had in his Sunday’s Mann ki Baat episode hailed citizens for goingbeyond their call of duty and leading the battle against the disease but alsowarned against any complacency over the coronavirus disease (Covid-19)pandemic.

Union healthminister Harsh Vardhan has also said India’s strategy to manage the diseasewon’t change and it will “aggressively look within the community for those whohave been infected. Look for them, test them, isolate them, and treat them”

Field teststo determine the reliability of the new, quick-result blood tests bought byIndia have been inconclusive, according to an official from India’s top medicalresearch body.

“The expertsare working to find out the cause of such huge variations in test results, anduntil they reach any conclusion, it is advised to the states to not use rapidtest kits for Covid-19 testing,” an Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)official has said.

Thedevelopment deals a blow to plans of many states to ramp up testing bydeploying the kits that were imported less than a fortnight ago. Their use washalted within a couple of days after they returned wildly varying results,often giving false negatives.

Rapid testkits were being seen as crucial in efforts to speed up Covid-19 testing, whichat present is done through the RT-PCR mechanism that takes about 24-48 hours toprocess.