Mumbai News

Mumbai crosses 300,000-case mark with 675 new Covid-19 cases – Hindustan Times

Eleven months after the first Covid-19 case was reported in Mumbai, the total number of Covid-19 cases in the city crossed the 300,000 mark on Wednesday. The caseload in the city stood at 300,474 on Wednesday which included 675 new cases. The death toll rose to 11,212 with 12 deaths reported on Wednesday. Of the total cases, 280,853 have recovered and been discharged from hospitals and health centres so far, bringing the city’s recovery rate to 93%.

Mumbai had reached the grim mark of 100,000 cases in July 2020, four months after the first case was reported on March 11. The cases sped up to 200,000 in September. Later, the trends changed to lower Covid-19 cases and deaths.

The trend of the declining Covid curve has continued since mid-November and December despite the fear of a surge in cases due to the festival season around that time. Statistics released by the state health department show that December 2020 recorded a drop of 60% and 84% as compared to the number of total Covid-19 cases in November and September, respectively. Compared to May last year, December’s caseload dropped by around 70%.

Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said, “Even though we are in a better situation than what we were in May and September, strict masking and social distancing needs to be continued. Whatever we could achieve so far is because of relentless efforts of our civic staff. We have to follow Covid protocols for a bit longer. We now want to focus on vaccination and ensure that we scale up our vaccine centres for a smooth implementation.”

A strict lockdown was imposed in March and the number of cases had peaked in June. Areas such as Worli and Dharavi were prime hot spots where hundreds of cases were being reported on a daily basis. The cases saw a decline in July and August, but later in September, there was a sudden surge which has been attributed to the festive season in August and lifting restrictions on public movement. By mid-November, there was a sharp decline in daily cases and active Covid cases in the city.

According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), active cases in Mumbai have been below 10,000 since December 15. Officials have cited this as a good sign for the city. The case fatality rate (CFR) for Covid-19 has also dropped over the month from 9.5% in March 2020 to between 2.1% and 2.5% in September and December 2020.

The civic body also scaled up Covid testing exponentially even when the positivity rate declined. From 4,000-5,000 daily tests in May, BMC took the number up to 15,000 tests a day. While positivity rate had once peaked at 35-40% in May, it has now come down to 11.88% as of Wednesday.

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Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/mumbai-crosses-300-000-case-mark-with-675-new-covid-19-cases-101610566104188.html