97% fully vaccinated in Mumbai, zero deaths for 2nd day
The city’s eligible population is likely to be fully vaccinated by the end of this month, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials
Mumbai About 97% of the total eligible population of 9.2 million above the age of 18 years have been fully vaccinated in Mumbai. The city’s eligible population is likely to be fully vaccinated by the end of this month, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials.
On Wednesday, for the second consecutive day, Mumbai reported zero deaths due to Covid. Further, vaccination will pave way for the BMC to implement relaxation in norms. On Tuesday, the city also reported zero deaths and 235 cases. The state recorded 2,748 cases with 41 fresh deaths.
The Maharashtra Health Department’s weekly data showed that the average TPR in the second week of February (February 8-14) has now dropped to 3.99% from 9.30 % in the first week of February (February 1-7). The positivity rate on Wednesday is 2.32 % after conducting 1,18,124 tests in 24 hours.
According to the data, 9,236,500 citizens above 18 years of age are eligible for both doses of vaccine. Of them, 8,934,087 have got both doses and 10,559,489 have got one dose. Overall, 19,803,386 doses have been administered in the city.
According to BMC officials, they are aiming to begin with the lifting of relaxations by end of the month, but it will be wrong to say that all restrictions will be lifted. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner of the BMC, said, “There is scope to increase the capacity of restaurants from 50% to 75%. Further, relaxations can be given for gyms, marriage functions etc. We are going to take a decision at an appropriate time.”
Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal had told HT a week ago, “BMC is going to wait and watch if all restrictions can be lifted in the coming months as cases go down.”
On the other hand, experts said that more relaxation is on the cards. Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of Maharashtra’s Covid Task Force on Wednesday took to social media and said, “We are seeing the end of the third wave and hopefully a disruption-free life.”
Meanwhile, the mortality rate of the city is 1.58% and the recovery rate is 97%. There are 2,113 active cases and the daily positivity rate was 0.83%.
State surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate said, “The virus has been controlled effectively across the state and we are seeing this uniformly all across.”
Dr Satyandra Nath Mehra, medical director, Masina Hospital of Byculla called it the tail end of the virus. “We have the majority of the population which is immunised. It appears that citizens are developing herd immunity which has resulted in a lower rate of infections,” said Dr Mehra.
There are currently 22 districts in Maharashtra which have a positivity rate of more than the state average of 3.99 %. Out of these 22, 21 districts have a more than 5 % positivity rate and the lone exception is Nashik with a positivity rate of 4.34 %. Some of the districts including Amravati (17.76 %), Gadchiroli (15.80 %) and Buldhana (15.01%) have still been reporting high TPR.