Daily cases of Covid-19 dropped below the 10,000 mark for the first time in nearly two weeks in Mumbai, with the city reporting 7,895 fresh infections on Sunday, as the numbers from the Omicron wave continued a steady decline over the past week.
The positivity rate, the proportion of tests returning positive for Covid-19, meanwhile dropped to 13.7% from an average of around 20-22% over the past week.
The number of tests conducted in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) area slightly declined to 57,534 on Sunday, compared with more than 60,000 tests done through most of last week. To be sure, a minor drop in testing is generally not uncommon over weekends.
The rate of hospitalisation in the city remained low at 15%, as only 5,722 beds out of a total of 38,127 allocated for coronavirus patients were occupied. The percentage was same as on Saturday. Bed occupancy has been slowly declining in the city – it was 16.8% on Friday and 17.3% on Thursday.
A total of 688 patients were admitted to hospitals on Sunday, while 92 more patients in the city needed oxygen support, according to BMC’s health bulletin.
{{/usCountry}}A total of 688 patients were admitted to hospitals on Sunday, while 92 more patients in the city needed oxygen support, according to BMC’s health bulletin.
{{/usCountry}}The 7,895 new cases reported on Monday took the city’s total case count to 999,209.
On Sunday, the city reported 11 deaths due to the virus, taking the total toll to 16,457. The case fatality rate on Sunday was 0.13%, compared with the case fatality rate of 1.6%. There were 60,371 patients still fighting the disease.
Experts noted that while there has been a clear drop in infections and positivity rate in the city over the past week, they warned that there may be other factors at play such as the role of home-testing kits that may be underplaying the real numbers of the country.
“The trend of cases is lower now, there is no doubt about that. Hospitalisation is still the same,” said Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of the Maharashtra government’s Covid-19 task force. “This was the trend we noticed during the second wave, when hospitalisation reduced a few days after the number of cases dropped. This also indicates that people are not as fearful about the disease anymore, and may not be testing in the same numbers as before.”
“It is too soon to tell if the peak has passed,” said Dr Harish Chafle, senior consultant, pulmonology and critical care at Global Hospitals. “The lower number of cases can also be attributed to too many people taking tests at home, and not reporting it to the civic body.”
“We cannot say that the peak has passed, but our cases have reached a plateau,” said Dr Om Shrivastav, also a member of the state task force. “The next few days will give us a clearer understanding of the behaviour of the infection at present.”
HT reported last Tuesday that Mumbai -- one of the earliest hot spot centres in the country’s Omicron wave -- has started showing early signs of decline in cases as well as positivity rate.
On January 7, Mumbai reported 20,971 cases, the highest number reported in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic. The positivity rate on January 7 was 28.9%, as 72,442 covid-19 tests were conducted. Similarly, on January 8, Mumbai reported 20,318 covid-19 cases, with a positivity rate of 28.6%, as it conducted 71,019 tests.
Since then, the daily Covid-19 cases have been fluctuating, with the city reporting 11,647 cases just three days later on January 11 with a positivity rate of 18%, 16,420 cases on January 12 with a positivity rate of 24.3%, and 13,702 cases on January 13 with a positivity rate of 21.7%.
On Saturday, Mumbai reported 10,661 cases, with a positivity rate of 19.5%.
Experts have urged Mumbaiites to continue to behave responsibly, wear face masks in public, and self-monitor symptoms that can lead to complications.