E-Paper
Mumbai registers rise in Covid-19 cases; positivity rate jumps to 8.4%
Pushed by numbers from India’s financial capital, Maharashtra also crossed the 1,000-mark and reported 1,081 cases and zero deaths, with a positivity rate of 4.25%. On Tuesday, the state-wide TPR stood at 3.16%.
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Two crucial parameters to track Covid-19 — daily infections and the test positivity rate (TPR) – continued to inch upwards in Mumbai as the city reported 739 cases on Wednesday, the highest single-day jump in cases in 116 days, and the positivity rate touched 8.4%, highest TPR since February.
The seven-day average of daily infections in the city — a statistic that represents a “case curve” of a region – has now climbed to 440 cases a day for the past week, against a low of 36 average cases a day for the week ended April 4, according to data furnished by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Meanwhile, TPR in the city jumped from 6% on Tuesday to 8.4% on Wednesday. The positivity rate was around 3% a week ago. In the 24 hours until Wednesday, 8,792 Covid tests were conducted in Mumbai.
A good sign, however, remains that the number of Covid-19 hospitalisations remain a minuscule proportion of the total available hospital beds – as things stand on Wednesday, only 0.42% of the city’s 24,473 hospital beds earmarked for Covid patients are occupied.
Pushed by numbers from India’s financial capital, Maharashtra also crossed the 1,000-mark and reported 1,081 cases and zero deaths, with a positivity rate of 4.25%. On Tuesday, the state-wide TPR stood at 3.16%.
BMC officials said they are expecting a further spike and an increase of symptomatic patients. Directing the civic administration to increase testing on “war footing”, municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Tuesday said, “The daily cases have tremendously increased in Mumbai. Now, with the monsoon around the corner, we will see a rapid rise in symptomatic cases.”
State health minister Rajesh Tope said that vaccination will be given priority. “We are seeing a surge in Mumbai, Thane and Pune. However, there are hardly any hospitalisations. This is because we have been successful in our vaccination programme,” said Tope. He added that the inoculation drives will be further speeded further.
Recently (WHEN?), state minister Aslam Shaikh had warned of another lockdown if cases continue to surge.
Experts, however, said that as long as hospitalisations remain low, there was no need to panic.
“The infected patients have mild symptoms and there are hardly any hospitalisation or deaths,” said Dr Ishwar Gilada, secretary-general, Organised Medicine Academic Guild. He added that vaccination should be ramped up and even precautionary doses should be encouraged.
