Kalyan leads with highest progressive Covid-19 cases in MMR

On Monday, KDMC recorded 1,527 cases, taking the tally to 103,384. The city did not report any new death, so toll remains 1,160. According to the civic body, the case positivity rate stands at 18%.

The Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), which had seen its highest peak of Covid-19 cases last year in July with 661 cases and had the highest progressive cases in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) with nearly 17,000 cases, is again leading with more than 100,000 cases and around 2,000-2,500 new cases reported daily.

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On Monday, KDMC recorded 1,527 cases, taking the tally to 103,384. The city did not report any new death, so toll remains 1,160. The civic body had, on Sunday, crossed the 100,000-cases mark with 2,552 new cases taking the case count to 101,857. According to the civic body, the case positivity rate stands at 18%. KDMC has ramped up testing to around 6,000-6,500 daily tests from around 2,500-3,000 tests conducted in July last year. As the case fatality rate stands at 0.19%, down from 1.95% in October 2020, KDMC claims the situation is in control.

“Although cases are increasing, the fatality rate is less as compared to earlier months, which is a major relief. The cumulative death rate since beginning is 1.5%. Our main focus is on controlling deaths,” said Vijay Suryavanshi, KDMC commission.

Activists from the city claim the major reason behind the surge in cases is lack of maintaining Covid-appropriate behaviour such as social distancing, wearing masks at the ground level, and added that the civic body is not carrying out sanitisation work at the centres, hospitals and other crowded places like it was doing earlier.

“When I went to take vaccine, I could see social distancing was not maintained properly by the people. The administration has done a lot by providing testing facility and building infrastructure, but people are not following the norms,” said Sreeniwas Ghanekar, founder of Alert Citizens Forum, Kalyan.

He added, “I have also noticed that earlier when the cases were on rise the civic body used to carry out sanitisation on a regular basis, but now I can hardly see sanitisation happening at any of the centres or hospitals.”

Residents also claimed that the civic body has not taken strict action against those violating Covid norms in all parts of the city. “Even though the civic body and police claim that they have been taking action against those violating norms, this is not happening in every corner of the city on a regular basis. Even now, when shops are asked to shut, some are still operating if civic officials are not around,” said Swaraj Patil, 39, a resident of Khadakpada, Kalyan (West).

Since January 21 this year to April 9, KDMC and police have taken action against 4,601 people for not wearing mask and collected ₹20.32 lakh in fines. Kalyan zone 3 police have also registered a total of 1,191 cases.

A KDMC official who did not wish to be named said, “We do not have enough manpower to take action against violators when compared to the population. Those who are taking action against violators also have their routine works to do, hence there is no regular drive.”

The civic body also pointed at housing societies for not maintaining norms. Ashwini Patil, KDMC medical health officer, said, “Most of the cluster cases are in housing complexes while slums have very less cases. Residents are not following home isolation strictly, which is leading to the spread.”