City crosses 40,000-case mark
WITHIN 8 DAYS SINCE 30K G-north ward, which covers Dharavi, Dadar and Mahim, becomes 1st ward to cross 3K cases
The city crossed the 40,000-mark for Covid cases on Monday, with 1,413 new cases taking the tally to 41,099. The toll stood at 1,319, with 40 new deaths. Also, the G-north ward, which covers areas such as Dharavi, Dadar and Mahim, became the first of the 24 wards in the city to cross the 3,000-case mark with 79 new cases.
The jump from 30,000 to 40,000 cases came within eight days and the city is expected to cross the case count of 50,000 next week, said civic officials. So far, 16,985 people have been discharged, putting the city’s recovery rate at 42%.
Civic officers said while the cases are rising on a daily basis, the doubling rate, too, has improved.
Suresh Kakani additional commissioner, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), said, “We have managed to improve our doubling rate to 14 days, which was four-five days in the initial stages of the outbreak. A lot of positive cases are from among those in quarantine, which has helped contain the spread, as these people cannot come in contact with anyone in the community.”
According to BMC’S wardwise break-up of cases, as of June 1, while G-north ward topped the list, L ward (Kurla) was second with 2,668 cases. In F-south ward (Parel), the tally jumped from 2,572 on May 31 to 2,622. The sharpest spike was in N ward (Ghatkopar), from 1,804 cases on May 31 to 1,892 cases on June 1.
In terms of ward-wise growth rate for a week, R-north ward (Dahisar) topped the list with 7.5%, followed by P-north ward (Malad) at 7% and S (Bhandup) ward at 6.8%. Wards such as E (Byculla), F-north (Matunga) and G- South (Worli and Prabhadevi) recorded lowest growth rate at 2.1%, 2.4% and 2.6%, respectively. Mumbai’s average growth rate stood at 3.85% on Monday, lower than Sunday’s 4.26%
Meanwhile, Dharavi reported 34 cases on Monday, pushing its tally to 1,805. A total of 2.5 lakh from the area have been screened. The India’s largest slum cluster houses 8.50 lakh people.
Dadar reported seven new cases, taking the total to 326. Mahim saw 17 new cases (total: 524).
State health minister Rajesh Tope and additional municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal on Monday visited the Covid Care Centre in Dharavi, a 200bed facility set up within 14 days.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, G-north ward, said, “This centre will exclusively have 200 beds with oxygen facility for moderate symptomatic patients. All medical and paramedical staff will start working in three shifts from Tuesday.”
The first 15 days of June, which will mark 11 days of relaxation of lockdown rules as part of the state’s Mission Begin Again, will prove to be crucial to determine the curve and peak of Covid-19 cases, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) analysis.
The state on Sunday announced lifting of curbs with a three-phased plan, following 2.5 months of lockdown owing to the Covid-19 outbreak. The relaxations will come into effect from June 3, June 5 and June 8, and will allow plying of taxis, cabs, autorickshaws for essential use, and opening up of garages and workshops, restarting services such as plumbers and electricians and permitting outdoor activities such as cycling and jogging, barring containment zones.
BMC has considered the 11-day period, as it is the approximate maximum incubation period for the virus before symptoms develop in any patient or the average maximum time taken for an asymptomatic positive patient to recover.
The cases are expected to rise during this time. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner in-charge of the public health department in BMC, said, “If an unidentified asymptomatic positive person takes public transport, which is possible during relaxation, he is likely to infect more people than he would while sitting at home during lockdown. So the number of cases in the first 11-12 days after the relaxations will help BMC estimate the surge – the extent to which the virus can spread without the lockdown. This needs to be studied.” “It is difficult to determine the exact time period of the peak for Covid-cases to Mumbai. But I believe we are nearing the peak now.”
“This period will definitely give some clues about how the disease will spread after the lockdown is lifted,” said Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer.
During the lockdown, isolating the high-risk population is easier through contact-tracing, fever clinics and screening of random pool of citizens. “It helped in stopping Covid-19 suspects from socialising in the community and ensured timely medical help. However, post relaxations, the initial trend will help the government realise if the cases are stabilising, or the situation is getting worse. If figures go up during this time, we will have to scale up the resources further,” Kakani said.
Kakani pointed out the government has two options. “No lockdown, so that more people interact, leading to a surge in cases. The numbers will stabilise and begin to reduce quickly, after the maximum number of people are affected. The second strategy is lockdown, where there are small jumps initially and a longer stabilising phase. BMC is prepared to handle the surge using the first strategy. This can also lead to herd immunity,” he said.
Mumbai has been doing better than the earlier projections of BMC. Mumbai’s doubling rate has gone up to 16-17 days. The two worst-hit wards of G-south (Worli and Prabhadevi) and G-north (Dharavi, Dadar, and Mahim) are showing doubling rates of 25 or 26 days, according to Kakani.
“Taking the multiplication factor of the virus into consideration, this is pretty good.”