Mumbai sees 5,890 new Covid cases; active cases now stand at 46,248

Mumbai on Monday recorded 5,890 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the active cases to 46,248

Mumbai on Monday recorded 5,890 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the active cases to 46,248. Mumbai also recorded 12 deaths, taking the toll to 11,665. Following the recent surge in Covid-19 cases in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) dashboard noted that 75% or 9,789 of its 13,006 beds for serious, critical, and symptomatic Covid-19 patients were occupied as of Monday morning, whereas 3,217 beds were vacant.

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These include its 1,709 ICU beds, of which 73.8% or 1,261 beds were occupied, and 448 were vacant, as of Monday morning. A total of 226 ventilator beds of the 1,036 total beds are vacant. Among the 3,241 beds in Covid Care facilities meant for mild symptomatic patients, 1,022 were vacant.

On Monday, the BMC issued an order for optimising its bed management, and also directed all facilities across the city to activate maximum available beds for Covid-19 patients. The guidelines in the order mandate strict implementation of decentralised bed management system, put in place at the beginning of the pandemic.

Hospital beds will be allotted to Covid-19 patients only through the ward war room, and not directly via hospitals. Sixty-nine more private hospitals will become operational for Covid-19 patients, adding 1,909 hospital beds, and 360 more ICU beds, according to the order.

After hospitals activated maximum beds for Covid-19 patients, 80% of these beds, and 100% of all ICU beds reserved for Covid-19 patients will be handed over to BMC for management via the ward war room, the order said.

The war rooms will first allot beds at local nursing homes and hospitals. Once these are fully occupied, beds at private hospitals will be allotted to patients, followed by beds at jumbo facilities, then at government hospitals, and lastly at municipal hospitals. A nodal officer will be appointed for every private hospital, for 24x7 coordination with the BMC. Asymptomatic patients will not be allotted beds in hospitals, so these remain vacant for those in need.

The order read, “In view of the current surge in Covid-19 cases, it is necessary to reiterate some of the important guidelines for better management of needy Covid-19 patients. It is observed that in spite of above orders, patients are directly admitted by the hospitals without information/intimation to the ward war room.”

In a statement last week, municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said BMC will increase the city’s bed capacity to a total of 21,000 beds in the next two weeks. According to the statement, BMC projected that these numbers will be able to cater to a situation of up to 10,000 new cases per day, should such a situation arise. Going by the present trend, only about 15% of such patients are critical and need hospital beds.

On Monday, Mumbai conducted 33,966 tests. This brings the positivity rate for the day to 17.2%, as opposed to 12%-14% recorded in the previous week, and 4%-5% recorded in the beginning of March. So far, Mumbai has conducted a total of 4,017,316 tests.