Number of containment zones in Mumbai has come down: BMC mayor

Mumbai had recorded the majority of the state’s cases of the coronavirus disease with 358 new infections, taking the tally to 5407, on Sunday. The city reported 12 deaths.

The number of containment zones in Maharashtra’s Mumbai, the worst-hit city in the country, have come down significantly after no case of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) were reported from the metropolitan in 14 days, news agency ANI reported on Monday citing the mayor.

A medical officer coming out from Jijamata Nagar, Worli, during the nationwide lockdow, imposed in the walk of the coronavirus pandemic in Mumbai, India, on Sunday, April 26, 2020. (Satish Bate/HT Photo)

“Our containment zones had reached to 1036. There has been a significant drop in the number of containment zones in Mumbai,” Kishori Pednekar, the mayor of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, was quoted as saying by ANI.

“Two hundred and thirty-one zones are out of the containment zone list after they didn’t record a single Covid-19 positive patient for the last 14 days,” she said.

Mumbai had recorded the majority of the state’s cases of the coronavirus disease with 358 new infections, taking the tally to 5407, on Sunday. The city reported 12 deaths.

Maharashtra on Sunday reported 440 cases, a slight drop from Saturday’s record figure of 811, taking the number of infected people in the state past the 8000-mark to 8,068. The state on Sunday recorded 19 deaths, taking the toll to 342.

With the rising number of cases in Mumbai and Pune region, the state government is yet to take a call on the Union ministry of home affairs notification allowing all shops, excluding liquor shops and those providing services, in urban and rural areas to reopen.

State officials said that the government is still considering the “pros and cons” of allowing the opening of shops in urban areas.

“Allowing shops to reopen in the non-containment areas of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune region could be harmful as hundreds of cases are being recorded daily. The chief minister is taking a review of all areas,” an official said.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday indicated that the decision on a relaxation of restrictions in the state will be taken after a review of the situation once the national lockdown ends on May 3.

BMC, which has 67.01% of the total Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra, is preparing for a drastic spike by May 15.

According to Manisha Mhaiskar, one of the bureaucrats on the Covid-19 task-force in BMC, the civic body is basing is preparedness plan on the projections of the Centre for Mumbai.

Mhaiskar said that taking an input assumption for a doubling rate of seven days in Mumbai, the modelling suggests that there would be around 70,000 cases towards the second half of May.

“I am not saying this, this is a projection of the Centre,” she said.

In a Facebook post, Mhaiskar said the “obvious” task before the civic body is to improve the doubling rate.