Published: August 27, 2020 2:14:39 am
As per district official, the death audits for the district is done at the Bhavnagar government medical college. (Representational)
After recording fewer than 1,000 Covid-19 cases for three days, Tuesday accounting for just 587 cases, Mumbai on Wednesday reported a jump of 1,854 fresh cases taking city’s total count to 1.39 lakh cases. Officials said a technical error in the ICMR portal, to which all laboratories report cases, led to the fluctuation in numbers in the last two days.
Due to ongoing Ganesh Utsav festivities, Mumbai has witnessed a slight dip in testing, leading to fewer positive cases.
On August 22, on Ganesh Chaturthi, 6,946 samples were tested. It fell to 5,269 the next day, on Sunday.
The number of positive cases, too, have seen a drop. On August 23, 991 people were found positive for the virus, which reduced to 743 the next day (Tuesday) and 587 the following day.
Officials said on August 25, entire data could not be uploaded by ICMR, and the figures were updated only on Wednesday which lead to a sharp rise.
On Tuesday, only 5,960 people were tested in Mumbai, a decline from over 8,000-9,000 that BMC was testing on a daily basis until last week.
While low count of testing is one reason for fewer cases, BMC’s additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said, “We are getting few positive cases because more people have been exposed to and developed immunity against the virus. Our testing numbers have not reduced.” He referred to sero survey findings in which about 40 per cent tested were found exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra recorded the highest single-day count of 14,888 new cases on Wednesday.
With cases across the state steadily rising, the state health officials estimate the daily count to touch 20,000 in a month.
A total of 295 people succumbed to Covid-19 on the day, taking the toll to 23,089.
In Mumbai, 28 people died Wednesday, taking the toll to 7,505. Eighty-one per cent people have recovered in the city and only 18,979 remain actively infected.
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Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/mumbai-sharp-jump-in-covid-cases-icmr-portal-glitch-blamed-6571447/
