Daily cases drop to 1,049 in Mumbai, positivity rate at 4.7% but fatality still high

The city on Monday reported 1,049 Covid-19 cases against 21,947 tests conducted on Sunday, with a positivity rate for the day of 4

The city on Monday reported 1,049 Covid-19 cases against 21,947 tests conducted on Sunday, with a positivity rate for the day of 4.7%. Mumbai also reported 48 deaths. The total case count has reached 697,959 and toll 14,613. Daily case fatality rate reported on Monday is 4.5%.

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Mumbai has been reporting a higher daily case fatality rate for the past month. The higher number of deaths has been attributed to the spike in cases reported in April and first part of May as well as a rise in critical patients infected during this period.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner in charge of civic public health department, said, “More deaths occur in patients who are in the intensive care unit (ICU). Patients admitted to ICU take longer to be discharged and remain in the hospital for more than 21 days on an average, whereas the normal cycle of the virus in an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patient is 14 days. At least 25% of our ICU patients have been in the hospital for 28 days or longer.”

“ICU bed occupancy is higher when compared to normal Covid-19 bed occupancy. Even though independently, more ICU beds are vacant now in comparison to last month,” he added.

Of the total 22,078 beds available for Covid-19 patients, 13,704 or 61% are currently vacant.

In case of ICU beds, 532 of the total 2,867 beds or 18% are vacant. Of the 1,471 ventilator beds, only 147 or 9.9% are vacant.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Save Lives strategy, coined in mid-2020 to reduce the number of Covid-19 deaths, is still in place, Kakani said. In addition, BMC is studying reasons of death in individual cases, and referring the findings to the state task force to come up with solutions.

Once the infection reaches the patient’s lungs or other complications related to Covid-19 have reached an advanced stage, it is more difficult to treat them with drugs like Remdesivir, said Kakani. In such cases, the line of treatment doctors opt for takes longer to show its effects.