City’s Covid toll jumps to 5,244 with 751 past deaths added in June, July

The city has added 751 deaths from Covid-19 to its death toll from June 19 till date as part of an exercise to reconcile pending death figures. These deaths occurred

The city has added 751 deaths from Covid-19 to its death toll from June 19 till date as part of an exercise to reconcile pending death figures. These deaths occurred earlier and were reported late to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

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Mumbai recorded 1,284 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, raising the total number of cases in the city to 91,745. Of these 24.8%, or 22,782, are active. So far, 63,431 patients have recovered. The death toll from Covid-19 is 5,244 and the mortality rate is 5.7% in the city. On Saturday, 39 deaths were recorded in Mumbai.

Previously, BMC had issued two warnings (on June 18 and June 26) to public and private hospitals to report pending figures for Covid-19 deaths, and thereafter report all Covid-19 deaths within 48 hours. After the first warning, reconciled figures of Covid-19 deaths between June 19 and June 26 totalled 353. After the second warning, 398 deaths from Covid-19 from June 26 till date were added to the toll. The delay in reporting deaths has been attributed to hospital staff being overworked and limited means of communication during lockdown.

Municipal Commissioner IS Chahal said, “This is a continuous, ongoing process of reconciliation of hundreds of hospitals in Mumbai, [being done] in a very transparent manner by unearthing past deaths of March to June.”

An officer from BMC’s health department said, “It is not only late reportage from hospitals. There are a lot of factors. Some deaths that occurred in Mumbai are of persons residing outside of Mumbai in the jurisdiction of nearby municipal corporations,” said an officer from BMC’s health department.

According to BMC’s daily press release, 69 deaths were added on July 1, over and above that day’s death toll. Similarly, 57 additional deaths were recorded on June 30; 71 on June 27; 64 on June 28; 64 on June 27; 73 on June 26; 40 on June 25; 82 on June 24; 65 on June 23; 46 on June 22; 61 on June 20; and 59 on June 19. These figures were reported apart from the daily figure of deaths that occurred in the previous 48 hours.

On June 16, the state had added 862 deaths to Mumbai’s Covid-19 death toll (1,328 reconciled Covid-19 deaths were added to the state’s death toll). Following criticism for this reconciled figure, BMC had clarified on June 6 that the municipal commissioner had carried out a thorough investigation after a private hospital reported 17 deaths to BMC on a single day even though 16 of these were from earlier dates. Subsequently, on June 8, all private and public hospitals were instructed to reconcile the numbers of the dead and submit these within 48 hours.

A senior civic officer said, “After hospitals reported pending deaths, the death audit committee examined them and took a final call on whether they are deaths due to Covid-19. As and when the audit committee confirmed the figures, they were added to BMC’s daily press release.”

Dharavi has become an international role model: CM

A day after the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised efforts taken to tackle the spread of Covid-19 in Dharavi along with other areas, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said that the Dharavi slums have emerged as a “global role model” for containing the spread of the virus

“Dharavi is an inspiration for the world on how to curb the spread of a pandemic,” he said in a statement

The CM also praised the integrated efforts taken by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, NGOs and Dharavi locals, and congratulated them, calling it a success of their efforts.