Mumbai reports 7,192 Covid-19 cases, 34 deaths – Hindustan Times

Mumbai on Tuesday reported 7,192 Covid-19 cases and 34 deaths, taking the tally to 594,059 and the death toll to 12,446. There are 82,671 Covid-19 cases in the city at present.

The overall case fatality rate in the city has now dropped to 2%. On Monday, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) conducted 45,350 tests with a daily positivity rate of 15.8%, down from the daily positivity rate of around 18% to 20% until last week. So far, the BMC has conducted a total of 5,027,882 Covid-19 tests.

Meanwhile, the civic body has now decided to free up oxygen and intensive care units (ICU) beds by shifting non-critical patients to ordinary beds in its Covid facilities.

Indicating that the situation in Mumbai is stabilising, municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Tuesday said, “Today we have around 7,000 cases and around 45,000 tests, with a continuous decline in cases in the past five days. There are 87% asymptomatic patients today. As of 2.30pm on Tuesday, we have 3,685 Covid-19 beds vacant.”

Chahal added that Mumbai has seen 947 deaths in the last 70 days, since the second wave of the pandemic started, with approximately 2.66 lakh cases during this period.

This puts the case fatality rate (CFR) during this period at 0.3%.

Quoting a media bulletin from New Delhi’s public health department, Chahal pointed that in contrast, Delhi city reported 240 deaths in a single day on April 19.

On April 19, Mumbai reported 7,381 Covid-19 cases, on April 18, it reported 8,468 cases, April 17 it reported 8,811 cases, and on April 16, it reported 8,803 Covid-19 cases. The highest number of cases reported during this second wave of the pandemic was 11,206 cases on April 4.

3,622 beds vacant

As of Tuesday morning, Mumbai had a total of 21,093 Covid beds in hospitals and jumbo facilities, of which 17,471 are occupied and 3,622 are vacant. Of the 10,511 oxygen beds, 9,845 are occupied, and 666 are vacant; of the 2,798 ICU beds, 2,748 are occupied, and 50 are vacant; of the 1,426 ventilator beds, 1,405 are occupied and 21 are vacant.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner incharge of BMC’s public health department, on Monday said BMC’s step-down policy is helping the civic body with bed management.

He said, “When a critical or serious patient has recovered from Covid-19 infection, such that he does not need round the clock medical assistance and does not need to occupy an ICU bed, a ventilator bed or an oxygen bed previously allotted to him, such patients will be shifted to quarantine facilities, which are equipped with doctors and medical staff. Some patients opt to be home quarantined during such a period if they have that option. This makes the bed available for another needy serious or critical patient.”