12 lakh completed quarantine in Mumbai since March: BMC
COVID CRISIS City’s virus tally stands at 83,237 cases, of which 53,463 patients have recovered; death toll is 4,830
MUMBAI: With more than 83,000 cases of Covid-19 in the city to date, more than 12 lakh people have completed their quarantine — institutional or at home — according to data by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
On Saturday, Mumbai recorded 1,163 fresh cases and 68 new deaths. The city’s case tally rose to 83,237, while the death toll touched 4,830. The total number of discharged patients in Mumbai was 53,463 with a recovery rate of 64.2%. Further, active cases stood at 24,936. The fatality rate in the city as of Saturday was 5.80%, and the doubling rate was 41 days.
One hot spot that has shown signs of drastic improvement — Dharavi — recorded only two cases on Saturday, the lowest since the first week of April. The area has reported a total case count of 2,311, of which 1,704 have been discharged.
According to BMC data, more than 12.72 lakh citizens have completed their quarantine period till now, since March 11. As of July 2, around 12,465 citizens were under institutional quarantine, and over 2.47 lakh were under home quarantine.
Further, BMC has used contact tracing to identify more than 15.32 lakh citizens who were either high-risk or low-risk contacts of Covid-positive patients. The figure also includes those who have been arriving in Mumbai from domestic and international destinations under the Centre’s Mission Vande Bharat.
The civic body claims to have screened more than 1.24 crore people, which includes the floating population, and around 4.97 lakh senior citizens to ascertain their blood-oxygen level. Of the 4.97 lakh senior citizens who were screened, 2,254 had oxygen levels below 95.
Daksha Shah, deputy executive health officer, BMC, said, “You can say that we have quarantined over 9% of Mumbai’s population. But we have to keep in mind that this is the cumulative figure of almost four months. All low-risk contacts are home quarantined, and high-risk contacts are quarantined institutionally.”
BMC estimates over 9.67% of the Mumbai’s total 1.24 crore population (as of 2011 census) has been directly or indirectly affected by Covid-19. The city’s population is estimated to rise by around 4 lakh by 2021, according to BMC’S projections for the development plan (DP) 2034. Shah added that BMC is attempting to screen maximum citizens through area-wise screenings or sero-surveillance that is currently being conducting in three wards. “We would like to appeal to citizens to come forward to give their blood samples. The test is only to ascertain how many have developed antibodies,” she said. A sero-surveillance test is conducted to diagnose individuals for antibodies of the Sars-cov-2 virus that causes Covid-19 and monitor its spread. During sero-surveillance, citizens undergo blood tests that can detect the presence of IGG antibodies, which develop against Sars-cov-2.
“We have the highest number of citizens quarantined in the state as many international and domestic passengers who landed in Mumbai increased our home quarantine count. We trace around 13 high-risk contacts of every Covid-positive patient in slums, and in non-slum areas, two to 10 high-risk contacts are traced,” said a BMC official.
Meanwhile, according to BMC data, H-east ward (Bandra East and Santacruz East), has traced a maximum of 19 persons behind every positive patient from slum areas. The second highest is 17 patients in D ward covering areas like Malabar Hill, Grant Road, and Chowpatty.
BMC also claims to have around 38% bed vacancy, with 7,273 of the total 19,561 beds available. The highest vacancies have been reported in type-2 Covid care centres (CCC-2), where 3,479 of the total 6,160 beds are empty.
There are around 757 active containment zones in the city that consist slums and chawls. The highest containment zones are in L ward covering Kurla and Sakinaka, which has 96 containment zones.
The city has around 6,352 active sealed buildings, with a maximum of 789 in R-central ward (Borivli).