Mumbai civic body to map coronavirus patients, upload location details

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now map Covid-positive cases using a geographical information system (GIS) and make some details of these cases

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now map Covid-positive cases using a geographical information system (GIS) and make some details of these cases available to the public. To tackle the problem of unverified messages on platforms like WhatsApp about who has tested positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, the civic body will release specific details about positive cases, including their locations. The details will be uploaded on the civic body’s website this week and be regularly updated. The decision to make these details available on the BMC’s website was taken at a recent meeting headed by municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi.

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A senior civic official said, “We want people to know if their vicinity is not safe and venturing out, if it’s not an emergency, can prove deadly. Social distancing should be taken seriously. The entire point is to break the chain of the virus’s transmission.” Officials said they have collated all necessary details, like the number of patients and mapping the areas where the patients are located.

The details that the BMC will release to the public include the building or slum pocket where the positive cases reside and the total number of patients who have tested positive in a particular neighbourhood. However, personal details of either the patient or the family will not be uploaded on the BMC’s website.

Also, to reduce the work load on hospitals, the BMC has decided to allocate different roles to final-year medical students at four major city hospitals to handle outpatient duty (OPD) and primary treatment. Nursing students the second and third years will be allocated specific roles accordingly and all students will be given required training before being deployed.