Mumbai records 49,496 cases in 40 days of relaxations

City sees 1,243 fresh cases and 44 deaths; doubling rate touches 50 days

Forty days of relaxation of curbs, which began on June 3, gave Mumbai 49,496 new cases and 3,871 deaths – 53.2% of the total cases in the city.

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The Maharashtra health department data shows that on June 3, Mumbai had 43,492 cases and 1,417 deaths, which went up to 92,988 cases and 5,288 deaths, on July 12. In the same period, the fatality rate increased to 5.68% from 3.25%. One of the reasons is the addition of 1,500 deaths by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) after reconciliation of figures. In this period, the recovery rate of the city, too, went up to 69%, from 40%.

On Sunday, Mumbai recorded 1,243 fresh cases and 44 deaths. The number of discharged patients stood at 64,872 and active cases at 22,540. The city’s doubling rate is 50 days.

Cabinet minister and Worli MLA from Shiv Sena Aaditya Thackeray on Sunday tweeted: “Mumbai at a doubling day rate of 50. That’s going to remain there only with the efforts of citizens, precautions we take for ourselves and others.”

In Mumbai, 3.91 lakh tests have been conducted until Sunday, according to BMC data.

Experts and officials indicated the authorities will continue to impose restrictions and give relaxations gradually in the coming days.

Mumbai mayor and Shiv Sena corporator Kishori Pednekar said, “The numbers are increasing and we are getting new cases also from high-rises. It may be because of the relaxations, but we cannot afford to have Mumbai under lockdown forever. We have to relax lockdown norms and also be cautious at the same time. Also, citizens need to understand that they should not venture out if they have no valid reason.”

Dr Shashank Joshi, expert member of Maharashtra’s Covid-19 task force, said the scenario would depend on how the relaxations are implemented.

“The absolute numbers have flattened in Mumbai, growth rate has gone down and doubling rate has gone up to 50 days. In Mumbai, the situation looks pretty good, but to be cautious, we should keep in place lockdown measures such as asking citizens not to travel long distance unnecessarily. Another two weeks, and the situation in the city will be much better.”

Joshi said, “Our concern right now is towns in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) where cases are rising. We have to aggressively conduct testing and tracing in MMR…We will again start unlocking in future, but we have to be mindful, slow and gradual. We also have to maintain high hygiene. We have to keep locking and unlocking.”

BMC has opted for aggressive testing in Mumbai and from July 7 allowed anyone to get tested without a prescription. BMC had also asked ward officers in the western suburbs to use antigen kits and conduct at least 250 tests using it daily.

Owing to this, BMC had anticipated a little spike in the number of cases, however, the picture will be clear by month-end, said experts.

Meanwhile, Dharavi,one hot spot that has shown signs of drastic improvement recorded only five cases on Sunday, bringing the area’s total case count to 2,375 of which 2,016 have been discharged.