Mumbai civic body shuts 55% units for asymptomatic patients

In the past two months, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has temporarily shut, or what they called deactivated, 55% of the quarantine centres meant for

In the past two months, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has temporarily shut, or what they called deactivated, 55% of the quarantine centres meant for asymptomatic Covid-19 positive (CCC2) patients in Mumbai. By the end of July, the city had 61 such quarantine centres; the number has now dropped to 27. These 27 centres have a bed capacity of 3,444, of which 52% or 1,637 beds are currently occupied.

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Currently, 57 of the 335 Covid care centres (CCC1) meant to quarantine high-risk contacts of positive patients are active, with a bed capacity of 19,865, while 278 such facilities with a bed capacity of 26,812 have been put on reserve.

This comes as more Mumbaiites, who are asymptomatic positive, or who are high-risk contacts of positive patients, are in home quarantine. BMC in May decided to allow asymptomatic positive patients to quarantine at home, as long as the home has a separate toilet and separate room. In slums, BMC moves up to 13 high-risk contacts per positive patient to institutional quarantine facilities. The trend of the spread of infection has been moving from slums to more residents of high-rise buildings, as Mumbai is opening up.

Mumbai on Sunday recorded 2,170 new cases and 42 deaths due to Covid-19, taking the total number of cases to 229,446 and toll to 9,433. The number of active cases in the city is presently 25,768. While 59% of the total active cases are asymptomatic, 34% are symptomatic, and 6% are critical. As per data available as of October 10, BMC has shifted 156,554 high-risk contacts to quarantine facilities, and 517,010 high-risk contacts have been home quarantined.

A senior civic official from the health department said, “Even though we have shut these facilities, they can be reactivated and used any time. Right now, we don’t need so many institutional quarantine facilities. We have enough beds now. As the virus has moved to non-slum population, we don’t need as many facilities.”

BMC has partly attributed it to the increase in the number of beds in jumbo facilities at seven places across the city.