Mumbai reports close to 2,000 cases, bed occupancy rises

Mumbai reported close to 2,000 cases with 1,963 cases of Covid-19 being reported on Sunday

Mumbai reported close to 2,000 cases with 1,963 cases of Covid-19 being reported on Sunday. This was the highest number of cases reported in nearly five months after 1,823 cases were reported on October 16, 2020. As the city is reporting record-high new Covid-19 cases daily, the bed occupancy rate has also increased. This has also resulted in the vacancy of beds going down to 59%, as of March 13, from 70%, as of February 22.

A health worker screens passengers at Dadar station. (Bhushan Koyande/ HT Photo)

According to BMC data, the bed occupancy ratio in dedicated Covid-19 centres and dedicated hospitals has increased to 40% now, from 29% on February 22. The data reveals that there has been a substantial surge in the occupancy ratio of the intensive care unit (ICU) beds followed by oxygen beds and ventilators. With this, the number of beds in the Covid centres and dedicated Covid hospitals has increased from 11,205 beds on February 22 to 12,998 beds, as of March 13. This increase has been significant in terms of oxygen beds that have increased from 6,174 last month on February 22 to 8,022, as of March 13.

On Sunday, the city reported 1,963 fresh Covid-19 cases followed by seven deaths taking the case tally to 343,962 and death toll to 11,535. The city’s recovery rate stood to be 92.74% with 318,995 recoveries in Mumbai. There are 12,535 active cases in the city.

In terms of the vacancy rate going down, the vacancy rate in ICU beds was 63% on February 22 to 44% on March 13. There are 1,536 ICU beds in the city of which 961 are vacant. In terms of oxygen beds, the vacancy rate has gone down to 66% from 76% on February 22. There are 8,022 oxygen beds in the city of which 5,354 beds are vacant. The vacancy rate of ventilators has gone down to 42% from 62%. There are 944 ventilators beds in the city of which 405 are vacant.

Dr Siddarth Paliwal, a city-based physician said, “The bed vacancy is not worrying yet considering the maximum or say over 75% cases are asymptomatic cases where home quarantining will also work considering 90% cases are from high-rises. However, any drastic increase in cases, which is happening currently is worrying, considering this could worsen the scenario. For this, speeding up the vaccination process is the only solution.”

Further, in the last one month, the number of cases also in the city has gone up with the city reporting over 1,000 cases since the past one week. The daily positivity rate has gone up from 3-4% in February to around 9%, as of Sunday. However, despite this, the silver lining remains that the mortality rate has remained stagnant at around 3.35%.

Municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal last week had said, “We are ensuring strict compliance of existing restrictions and there are no plans for lockdown further. The positivity rate is around 7-8% right now, and the situation will become alarming, requiring a review of restrictions if the growth rate goes to around 15%.” Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had undertaken a meeting with the malls and hotels association requesting them to take all Covid-19 precautions to ensure the spread remains in check. However, there are chances of the state government announcing fresh restrictions in the city this week, if cases continue to

Meanwhile, Aslam Shaikh, guardian minister of Mumbai city said on Saturday, “The task force and the government is working on what all restrictions may be needed for the city. Within a week, we may make an announcement, which will pertain to restrictions on hotels, malls, gymnasiums, crowds at railway stations, taxis, and all public places.”