The exponential rise in cases pushed Mumbai’s daily positivity rate (PR) to 4%, a seven-fold increase from the PR on December 1. The city has not had such a high positivity rate since May when the second wave had started to recede. The city’s daily positivity had dropped under 5% towards the end of January before it started to rise again from February and reached an average of 20% in March and April.
On Tuesday, the addition of 2,172 cases in the state was a consistent jump seen for the seventh day. The state’s Covid tally has reached 66,61,486. About 61% of the cases came from Mumbai, which has been observing a rise for nearly a week now. Monday was an exception when a marginal slump was seen due to low testing. A weekly comparison shows that from 1,300 cases reported in the first week of December, the numbers rose to almost 1,500 in the second week and roughly 1,900 in the third week. But between December 22 and 28, newly detected cases touched 5,478, an over 320% jump from the first week. Mumbai’s cumulative Covid-19 tally has reached 7,73,031.
The city’s Tuesday surge is the highest since May 26 when 1,352 cases were reported, while the state’s detection was the highest since October 14 (2,384).
Health minister Rajesh Tope said the state is vigilant about the Omicron graph. “The doubling rate of the variant is very high, and it has been forecast that the cases may rise significantly in January and February,” Tope said. Of the 167 Omicron cases, 91 have been discharged. Senior officials said so far Mumbai has been driving the surge by accounting for 50-55% of the cases. The state’s positivity rate is also on a rise, after staying consistently below 1% for weeks – it has touched 1.08%.
“(There’s a) possible third wave in Mumbai as the numbers are clearly suggesting a rising trend. But all are mild cases and no major strain on healthcare as of now. It’s important to be vigilant and cautious,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state Covid task force.
“Cases in the state have tripled in just one week. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray may hold a meeting of the state taskforce on Wednesday to decide the future course of action,” said an official. With New Year festivities around the corner, the government may bring in more measures to tackle crowding in public spaces
Hospitalisations have started to show a gradual uptick. Active cases in the state breached 11,000 (11,492) while Mumbai’s crossed 5,000 (5,803). Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said that daily admissions have increased marginally, but no significant rise has been noted in ICU admissions or critical cases. “On Tuesday, around 70 people got hospitalised out of all the new positive cases,” he said, adding that the city has more than 15,000 Covid beds ready.
At SevenHills Hospital in Andheri, which is a dedicated Covid-19 facility, there were 76 admissions on Tuesday, including 22 international travellers admitted on suspicion of Omicron. Dean Dr Balkrishna Adsul said it was a near four-fold rise compared to last week. “However, there have been no new admissions to ICU, although critical cases start coming in about 2-3 weeks after a spike in cases,” he said.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/mumbai-covid-cases-highest-in-7-months-maharashtra-numbers-maximum-in-75-days/articleshow/88555269.cms
