Mumbai: 113,591 Covid-19 cases detected in past 16 days, 650,000 samples tested

On Thursday, the city reported 8,938 cases and 25 deaths, taking case tally to 491,980 and toll to 11,881. Meanwhile, 395,378 patients recovered and were discharged with a recovery rate of 80.36%.

Ever since the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) intensified testing in the city since March 23, it has tested over 650,000 samples for Covid-19 and has detected around 113,591 cases, according to data from the state health department. During the same period, 252 deaths were reported in the city.

People stand in queue to board public transport at Andheri in Mumbai on Thursday. (Satish Bate/HT Photo)

Of the 650,000 samples tested, around 49% were tested using rapid antigen kits while the remaining 51% were tested using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kits, according to the data. In the first week, the ratio of rapid antigen kits was more than RT-PCR, which is considered to be the golden standard of Covid testing. However, later more samples were tested using RT-PCR. Since the usage of rapid antigen kits started in July 2020, BMC has maintained a varying ratio of 70:30 which later went on to 50:50.

On Thursday, the city reported 8,938 cases and 25 deaths, taking case tally to 491,980 and toll to 11,881. Meanwhile, 395,378 patients recovered and were discharged with a recovery rate of 80.36%. The case fatality rate stands at 2.41% and there are 83,693 active cases in the city.

In the past 16 days, daily case load in Mumbai went up from around 5,000 to around 11,000 cases. The areas that have the highest number of active cases include Borivli, Kandivli, Malad, Jogeshwari, Andheri, Mulund, Ghatkopar and Bhandup.

Further, Mulund has a highest of 2,164 sealed floors of the total 9,785 sealed floors across the city followed by Andheri which has the highest number of sealed buildings (283 out of a total of 789 such buildings). Meanwhile, Andheri (East) has the highest number of 16 containment zones that covers slums and chawls.

As per BMC protocol, a floor is sealed when a building reports less than five cases, and a building is sealed when a building reports more than five cases.

According to civic officials, daily cases being reported in the city are stabilising and a downward trend is expected to start post April 20.

Municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal earlier this week told HT, “If we look at the current scenario in the city of a second wave, daily cases reported in the city have almost stabilised between 8,000 and 11,000. If this trend continues, cases will start to go down post April 20, but only if citizens continue to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.”

Meanwhile, Dharavi — the city’s largest slum cluster and a former Covid-19 hot spot — reported a spike with 99 cases reported on Thursday, up from the daily range of 40 to 70 cases since the past few weeks. Dharavi has reported a total 5,474 cases in the past one year of which 4,243 have recovered and 913 are active. The vaccination centre at Dharavi saw 500 citizens getting vaccinated on Thursday — the highest so far.