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Coronavirus: Mumbai’s cases cross 1,000 after 132 more test positive
Covid-19: Mumbai recorded 132 cases on Friday, including two nurses at a hospital that was ordered to stop admitting new patients and two Tablighi Jamaat followers, taking the number of people confirmed to have been infected by the virus to 1,008.
Mumbai’s coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases crossed 1,000 on Friday, taking just 10 days to multiply tenfold, as health workers in India’s commercial capital ramp up testing for the infection, which has so far left 64 people dead in the city.
The city recorded 132 cases on Friday, including two nurses at a hospital that was ordered to stop admitting new patients and two Tablighi Jamaat followers, taking the number of people confirmed to have been infected by the virus to 1,008. Ten more deaths took the count of fatalities to 64 in the Maharashtra capital, the Indian city worst hit by the pandemic.
It took Mumbai 20 days to breach the 100-case mark after the first two patients, an Andheri-based couple, were identified on March 11. On March 31, the city crossed the 100-patient mark, taking the number to 151. Since then, the number of coronavirus disease cases has been multiplying faster.
The city crossed the 200-patient mark (235 cases) on April 2, the number doubling in two days. The number of Covid-19 cases tripled in the next six days.
Similarly, the death count due to the virus has increased at a faster pace.By April 9, the city had registered 54 deaths, which rose to 64 on Friday.
Mumbai’s first death linked to the virus was reported on March 17 when a 64-year-old man died in Kasturba Hospital. It then took 13 days to register 10 deaths. The death count tripled to 30 on April 5, and more than doubled to 64 on Friday, April 10 .
Mumbai municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi said the rise in the number of coronavirus cases and the death count was directly proportional to the higher level of testing for the disease in the city.
“High-level testing is our weapon through which we have identified many positive cases at an early stage, thereby, reducing the chances of community transmission. We are extracting more and more cases before the 14-day cycle of the virus so that these numbers don’t burst and emerge as community spread,” Pardeshi added.
Mumbai’s G south ward that spans areas like Worli and Prabhdevi has reported the maximum number of positive cases at 199. The E ward, which covers Byculla, Mazgaon and Central Mumbai, ranks second with 69 positive cases, followed by the D ward that includes areas like Malabar Hill and Grant Road with 61 positive cases.
Medical experts said the government should opt for random community testing to for a true picture of the virus’s spread.
“Yes it is necessary to do testing on large scale, but it is not enough. In addition to that the government should go for random testing in areas like Dharavi and Worli to get information about the community spread of the virus,” Dr Shashikant Ahankari, a community health specialist and president of the Halo Medical Foundation, said.
To deal with the challenge of testing people in densely populated areas like Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to procure 50,000 rapid testing kits. This antibody test kits will be made available within next three-four days (Wednesday-Thursday ), said a senior official from the civic health department.
On Friday, six more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Dharavi, taking the total in the slum to 28, a BMC official said. These included two persons who returned from the Tablighi Jamaat religious event held in mid-March in the group’s Markaz headquarters in Delhi’s Nizamuddin basti, which has emerged as India’s biggest coronavirus hotspot.
“Among those identified as Tabligi attendees in our search operation, two tested positive on Friday. One of them is from Dr Baliga Nagar and another from the PMGP Colony. We have already started tracing their high-risk contacts,” Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the G/North Ward, said.
Two nurses, aged 27 years and 42 years, of Dadar’s Shushrusha Hospital also tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday following which authorities asked the hospital to stop taking in any new patients. The BMC has asked the hospital to quarantine nearly 28 nurses who are employed there.
The civic body has given 48 hours to the hospital to discharge all existing patients after proper screening.
(With inputs from Sagar Pillai)
