Mumbai: The rising arc of Covid-19 positive cases in Mumbai has started to dip into double digits from 150-200 cases daily bringing relief to Maharashtra and the country as Mumbai alone had more than 2,000 positive cases and the highest mortality rates in the country. Mumbai had more than 126 deaths till Friday.
The financial capital of India and the epicentre in western India, Mumbai recorded 77 new Covid-19 positive cases on Friday. On April 9, there were 213 cases in the city, on April 10 there were 195 fresh cases which shot up to 226 in April 12 before dipping to 150 on April 13. The graph jumped to again on April 14 to 204. On April 15 there were 183 cases, on April 16 there were 117 cases and and April 17 saw 77.
There are some disputes regarding the figures as the Mumbai Bombay Corporation (BMC) changed the manner of testing. Earlier, the BMC used to test even asymptomatic people; lately the coproration has been in the news for saying only symptomatic people would be tested.
Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi, however, clarified to ET that the BMC had not stopped testing high-risk asymptomatic people.
“According to the Centre’s guidelines, we have decided to test asymptomatic people on the 7th day. This is when we come to know they are infected or not, so it is better to test them on the 7th day. Also, we will keep them in quarantine,” Pardeshi told ET.
An encouraging sign of the BMC getting a handle on things can also be gauged from the fall in the death toll in the city. A few days back, there were an average of more than ten people dying daily at Mumbai’s civic hospitals. This number too has now come to single digits. On Friday five people from the city succumbed to the disease.
BMC officials said that though the situation was alarming and had put the entire health apparatus in Mumbai under tremendous strain, the spread of the infection has been controlled.
A civic official said Mumbai may have seen the peak of the virus, but added “We need to be extra vigilant in the next six days, we are keeping our fingers crossed. We need to keep these figures in single digits.”
The BMC is focusing hard on Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, where more than 700,000 live cheek by jowl within 2.1 square kilometers. Over the last few days cases in Dharavi have been seeing a jump. On an average at least 11 cases per day were reported. BMC officials are still up beat about the situation.
