Covid-19: BMC says 92,112 are in home quarantine in city

In the past 10 days, the number of people who have been home quarantined by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has doubled. As of April 15, around 43,249

In the past 10 days, the number of people who have been home quarantined by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has doubled. As of April 15, around 43,249 citizens were home quarantined for 14 days; this number increased to around 92,112 as of Thursday, according to data released by the civic body.

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Further, the number of those under institutional quarantine was 3,271, as of April 15, and rose to around 6,000, by Thursday.

On Friday, 242 new positive cases and 11 deaths due to the coronavirus were reported, according to state health department data. The number of cases rose to 4,447 on Friday with the death toll reaching 178.

According to the BMC’s data, the number of citizens under home quarantine was 10,968 on April 6; 43,249 on April 15; 57,700 on April 17, and 92,112 on April 23. High- and low-risk contacts of positive patients, those having travel history, and people identified from fever clinics are typically home quarantined.

The spike in the number of people home quarantined and institutionally quarantined has been attributed to the BMC’s focus on identifying maximum possible close contacts of Covid-19 patients.

“We are identifying more citizens for home quarantine due to which the number has increased,” said Daksha Shah, deputy executive health officer.

The Central government’s team that had visited Dharavi earlier this week has also asked the BMC to increase quarantine facilities for the slum area.

To increase the capacity at institutional quarantine facilities, BMC officials said they are not looking at any particular area considering the patients can also be shifted.

P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner, said, “Every ward will have its limitations, so we are planning to have quarantine facilities spread across the city. Till now we have identified around 44,000 rooms for institutional quarantining.”

The BMC anticipates that in a worst-case scenario, Mumbai will have around 70,000 positive cases by the end of May. As of Thursday, of around 4,200 positive cases, 1,647 were identified through fever clinics, contact tracing, and from containment zones. The number of citizens screened at fever clinics has increased from 1,906 as of April 10, to around 5,836 till April 22.

Several wards that have the highest cases also have a higher number of containment zones.

According to the BMC, six wards have around 2,179 of the city’s total 4,232 Covid-19 cases as of Thursday.

These wards include G/South (Worli, Prabhadevi) with 534 cases; E (Byculla, Mumbai Central, Mazgaon) with 421 cases; L (Kurla, Powai) having 312 cases; K West (Andheri West, Oshiwara) having 311 cases; FN (Matunga, Sion, Wadala) having 305 cases, and G/North (Dharavi, Dadar, Mahim) with 296 cases.