COVID-19 in Mumbai: City witnesses highest single day rise

Coronavirus cases in Mumbai have been on a surge for the past few days and on Sunday, as many as 3,775 viral cases were recorded in the city. A report by The IE noted that this number is the highest single-day rise in Mumbai’s cases ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state last year in March. Prior to this, the highest number of Coronavirus cases recorded were on Friday as the city saw 3,063 new cases. This has taken the overall COVID-19 count of Mumbai to 3.62 lakh.

Currently, there are 23,448 active cases in Mumbai and in the last 24 hours, these cases have increased by 2,113. The report highlighted that the daily caseload in Mumbai has risen by 2.41 times in the first 21 days of March.

Notably, the death rate has not increased in the city. Since February this year, the daily death rate has dropped to single digits. Last year in October, the city had witnessed 40 deaths in a day. On Sunday, as many as 10 deaths were reported in the city and nine patients among these were above the age of 60 years. The report said that after October, the recovery rate has also increased and has come to 91 per cent as against 86 per cent last year during the peak.

Many officers have been directed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to ramp up the testing to 50,000 tests in two days from 25,000 tests being conducted so far. In the last 24 hours, 24,220 tests were conducted for the viral infection. The city has a positivity rate of 16 per cent, a jump from 5.2 per cent recorded 20 days ago. BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal also asked people to vaccinate 1 lakh beneficiaries in a day. As of now, 40,000 beneficiaries are being inoculated per day.

The report said that private hospital beds have also been increased by 2,400 beds, which Chahal directed on the back of increased hospitalisations. It is expected that in the next few days, the cases will surge and cross 5,000. The dedicated Covid health care centres and hospitals along with jumbo facilities have 12,694 beds right now. The report noted that 50 per cent of these facilities are occupied. Of total 1,539 ICU beds, 61 per cent are occupied.

Private and government hospitals have been directed to not admit asymptomatic patients and take only those in who have been referred from the BMC war room barring emergency Covid-19 case situations. All asymptomatic patients will have to go for home isolation.