While testing in Mumbai goes up, cases decline in August, but authorities expect further spike
According to Maharashtra health department data, Mumbai reported over 36,000 cases in June, around 35,000 cases in July, and over 30,000 cases in August
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbai’s governing civic body, anticipates a spike in Covid-19 cases because of relaxation in restrictions related to the pandemic and the Ganesh festival even as the number of infections has come down gradually with an increase in testing over the last three months. According to Maharashtra health department data, Mumbai reported over 36,000 cases in June, around 35,000 cases in July, and over 30,000 cases in August.
The BMC has said the next week is crucial as the effect of festival season is likely to seen during the following seven days.
Experts have advised caution saying the curve since last week of August has gone a bit upwards and added testing and tracing needs to be optimised. As many as 238,000 tests were conducted in August, 203,000 in July, 120,000 in May, and 132,000 in June, according to the BMC data.
In May, around 3,872 tests were being conducted daily, 4,422 in July, and over 7,600 in August. The overall positivity rate came down to around 18% in August. As many as 792,000 tests have been conducted in Mumbai till date with a positivity rate of 18.74%.
The BMC started screening people for Covid-19 on January 18 at the Mumbai Airport. It conducted the first test on February 3. The first positive case was reported on March 11.
Mumbai had only around 7,000 cases until April 30. In May, it reported around 31,874 cases, 36,559 cases in June, 35,139 cases in July, and 30,474 cases in August.
Mumbai has since August 26 been reporting between 1,100 to 1,800 cases daily.
Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of Maharashtra’s Covid-19 taskforce, said a small upward trend has been observed since the last week of August. “We have to ramp up the testing considering we are currently under testing and under tracing. We have to optimise the testing considering our capacity, which is not happening currently,” he said. “...we have liberalised testing where anyone can go and test, but if people are not coming out and testing, we will have to go to them and test them.”
Madhav Sathe, a former microbiology professor at Nair Hospital, said he has been vocal about increasing the daily testing for two months now. “In September too, we are testing around 9,000 samples in Mumbai daily whereas we should be testing at least 15,000. We have given an option to citizens to get tested, but we should also enforce testing if that is required for increasing the testing numbers. Also, at least front-line staff or those who come in contact with multiple people daily should all be tested to control the spread.”
Suresh Kakani, BMC’s additional commissioner, said the spike they expected will not be huge. “There will be a little spike in the number of cases being reported daily, and it is because we are having many relaxations... During the Ganesh festival, many went out and this might increase our tally,” he said. “The active cases in the city are around 20,000 and in the coming days, it will be anything above 17,000. ...our constant effort has been to increase the testing. Our capacity is to conduct around 1,4000 to 1,5000 tests daily and we are doing around 9,000 now.”