Mumbai civic chief urges citizens to maintain Covid-19 protocol during Diwali

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chief Iqbal Singh Chahal on Monday advised citizens to celebrate the festival of Diwali cautiously and carefully to prevent

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chief Iqbal Singh Chahal on Monday advised citizens to celebrate the festival of Diwali cautiously and carefully to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

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Chahal said while active cases have fallen down by 29.2% in the past one month and fatality rate has also dipped, citizens should still act cautiously and carefully during Diwali. He also said that the number of sealed buildings have reduced while daily testing has gone up.

BMC is expecting a surge in number of cases in view of Diwali and the opening of trains in the coming days.

Chahal on Monday said, “Extremely encouraging results have been witnessed in the past one month due to aggressive and successful house-to-house survey under ‘My Family, My Responsibility’ initiative.”

According to BMC officials, civic health teams have visited 34.9 lakh families of the 35.2 lakh families in the city twice between September 15 and October 31 to physically check their health status and raise awareness about wearing masks, physical distancing and using sanitiser.

Chahal added, “More than 1.5 lakh citizens were fined for not wearing masks and spitting, and more citizens will be fined, if found without masks or spitting in public space.”

The civic chief also said, “We have decided to not lower our guard and not be complacent in this relentless fight against Covid-19. We request all eminent citizens to celebrate the festival of Deepawali with utmost care and caution.”

Anticipating a surge owing to festival season, BMC also started 244 testing centres across the city wherein citizens will be able to avail free Covid-19 testing from Monday. According to BMC officials, the number of daily testing has gone up significantly from around 6,500 on an average in August to 14,000-16,000 in October. They expect the number to increase to 24,000 with the help of these testing centres.

Between September 30 and October 31, the number of active cases has fallen by 29% in the city, the number of sealed buildings reduced by 30% and containment zones reduced by 13%. Further, Mumbai’s doubling rate has climbed from 66 days to 171 days during this period. Fatality rate for October was 2.5% while the overall fatality rate was 3.9%. The number of available Covid-19 beds rose from 4,986 to 7,817 beds and the same for ICU beds rose 225 to 561 beds.

Meanwhile, on Monday, 706 new cases and 30 deaths were reported in the city, taking case count to 259,111 and toll to 10,348. In Mumbai, a total of 230,232 patients have been discharged with discharge rate at 88.85%.

Currently, there are 17,982 active cases in Mumbai and fatality rate is 3.99%. One hot spot that has shown signs of drastic improvement – Dharavi – recorded only 11 new cases on Monday, taking the tally to 3,617, of which 3,152 have been discharged.