2 lakh in city are in home quarantine; BMC says result of finding contacts
number of citizens who are home quarantined in the city has crossed two lakh mark in less than a month of crossing the one lakh mark in the last week of April, states the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) data.
The number of citizens under home quarantine was 10,968 on April 6, followed by 43,249 on April 15, 57,700 on April 17, and 92,112 on April 23. It crossed the one lakh mark by the end of April.
According to BMC data, as of May 13, the number of citizens who have been under home quarantine has reached 2,34,829 followed by 95,154 completing their quarantine period.
As of May 13, the BMC had traced around 3,29,982 contacts of 15,581 positive patients of which 2,70,459 were low-risk contacts, and 59,524 were highrisk contacts.
Around 3,400 patients who have tested positive for coronavirus have been tested positive owing to contact tracing.
Majority of the those who are advised to be home quarantined are low-risk contacts of those tested positive, followed by those who are high-risk contacts of positive patients but are asymptomatic.
A BMC official said, “With the numbers of positive cases increasing, we also need to have more contacts traced for home quarantine. The situation would be worrying if there was no substantial growth.”
The Central government’s team that has visited the city twice has also asked the BMC to increase quarantine facilities for Dharavi. Newly appointed municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal had also stressed on more contact tracing and quarantining.
Daksha Shah, deputy executive health officer, BMC had earlier said, “We are identifying more and more citizens for home quarantine due to which the number has increased.”
Further as per BMC data till May 13, the number of citizens who have been screened at fever clinics has increased to 18,360. Around 1,906 were screened till April 10 and 5,836 citizens were screened till April 24.
Meanwhile, BMC anticipates that in the worst-case scenario, Mumbai will be reaching its peak by June end.