TPR on decline but citizens shouldn’t get complacent – Hindustan Times

Mumbai The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) in Mumbai dipped below the three per cent-mark on Sunday, but officials asked citizens to not become complacent with the situation and continue adhering to Covid-appropriate behaviour.

The city reported 1,160 fresh Covid infections in the past 24 hours, taking the overall case tally to 10,44,712 and 10 deaths taking the toll to 16,612.

With 46,307 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the TPR on Sunday stood at 2.5 per cent. Earlier on Saturday (January 29), the city had a TPR of 3.62 per cent while on Friday (January 28), the TPR of the city stood at 3.9 per cent. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) data also showed that the maximum number of tests were conducted on Sunday compared to the earlier two days.

The BMC data also said that as of Sunday, 2,268 (six per cent) of the total 37,573 beds were occupied in Mumbai.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner and in charge of the BMC, said that it is safe to say now that the third wave has started to recede in Mumbai.

“This Omicron wave lasted for only six weeks in Mumbai. The TPR started to go up from December 21 and on January 30, the TPR already stands at 2.5 per cent. Even the peak stage that came in early January only lasted for one week, following which cases started to decline steadily,” Kakani said on Sunday.

He also mentioned that owing to the less severity of this variant, more than 70 per cent of the beds remained vacant throughout the third wave and most of the patients that required hospital admissions were either senior citizens with serious co-morbidities or unvaccinated or partially vaccinated citizens.

Kakani also said that considering the fall in numbers, the BMC is set to take a call on issuing relaxations on some of the ongoing restrictions this week.

“We may take a decision on relaxing a few curbs this week including extending operational hours of restaurants and allowing Mumbaikars in some of the open spaces,” he said.

Meanwhile, experts said that while the Covid graph in Mumbai has started to show a downward trend, citizens should not become complacent and should continue to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.

Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of the state and national Covid task force, said that as migration and reverse migration happen through Mumbai regularly, one shouldn’t get complacent even though the number of cases has started to fall steadily. “This is because Mumbai as a city may have reached the plateau stage and is on the verge of decline, there are still many districts which are yet to reach their peak,” he added.

Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state Covid task force, said that the doubling rate of Mumbai is 375 days now.

“Now that cases have started to go down, our primary objective should be bringing down the mortality rate. Treating serious patients and giving special attention to patients under oxygen and ventilation should be our priority,” said Dr Joshi.

Out of the total cases that were reported on Thursday, 87% are asymptomatic and at present, there are 16,612 active cases in the city and the recovery rate of Mumbai is 97%.