Covid-19 cases have stabilised, next 15 days crucial: Mumbai civic chief

On Thursday, the city reported 8,209 cases and 50 deaths, taking tally to 553,404 and toll to 12,197. The city’s recovery rate stands at 82.27% with 455,293 recoveries. Fatality rate is 2.20% and there are 84,753 active cases in the city.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday said Covid-19 cases in the city have stabilised between 8,000 and 10,000, and the next 15 days are crucial. BMC had earlier said cases would start to go down by April-end. The daily positivity rate in the city has gone down to 15%, from 26% earlier this month.

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However, owing to the increase in the number of cases in the state along with rise in demand for oxygen beds in Mumbai, BMC on Thursday said it would appoint six civic officials to act as coordinators between oxygen suppliers, assistant municipal commissioners of the 24 civic wards and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The officials will be responsible for maintaining the existing oxygen supply and also ensuring that the same is used sparingly. There are around 150 private and government hospitals in the city treating Covid-19 patients.

Municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Thursday said, “Although the daily number of patients in Mumbai has stabilised between 8,000 and 10,000 in the last 15 days, the next 15 days are even more important. Given the growing number of patients and the amount of oxygen they need, it is important to keep the supply system running smoothly. At present 235 metric tonnes of oxygen is being supplied to the hospitals in Mumbai, and in view of the increasing number of patients, more demand has been made to the government.”

On Thursday, the city reported 8,209 cases and 50 deaths, taking tally to 553,404 and toll to 12,197. The city’s recovery rate stands at 82.27% with 455,293 recoveries. Fatality rate is 2.20% and there are 84,753 active cases in the city.

Meanwhile, Dr Siddarth Paliwal, city-based physician, said, “It is likely that the burden on health infrastructure will drop marginally as the lockdown will help bring the cases under control. However, about the number of cases going down in the city, I feel we will need at least around 30 days to bring down the cases with the amount of testing we are conducting in the city.”

He added, “Though cases might have stabilised and the daily positivity rate has gone down, I feel our testing is also stabilising between 45,000 and 55,000. We need to steadily increase our daily testing figure and aim for at least 65,000 to 80,000 tests daily.”