The central government has revised the country's rules for Covid-19 tests as domestic labs are being overwhelmed and test results of infected persons are being held up.

"Healthy" inter-state travellers and Covid patients being discharged from hospitals after recovery must not be tested, the Centre has said in a circular issued to all state governments.

The centre said the over 2,500 labs in the country are working under tremendous pressure because of the rapidly growing caseloads.

"The need for RT-PCR test in healthy individuals undertaking inter-state domestic travel may be completely removed to reduce the load on laboratories," the circular states.

"No testing is required for COVID-19-recovered individuals at the time of hospital discharge," it added.

The centre said people who tested positive once – either by rapid tests or the gold standard RT-PCR – must not be tested again.

Non-essential travel of people with Covid symptoms should be avoided to reduce the risk of infection, the government added.

All asymptomatic individuals undertaking essential travel must follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.

Reports of RT-PCR test results getting delayed by several days have emerged from many Covid-hit states. This in turn delays the treatment of coronavirus patients and is weakening the fight against the deadly pandemic.

More and more people are now also being forced to opt for expensive CT-scans that can detect signs of the infection in lungs.

India has been reporting over 3 lakh daily coronavirus cases for over a week. On Tuesday, the country's single-day Covid numbers were 3.35 lakh cases and 3,449 deaths in 24 hours.