City sees downward trend in testing times
Senior doctors from civic hospitals fear cases may jump again in next two weeks due to unlocking
Although the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has increased testing for coronavirus, the infection rate has remained constant for the last 10 days. Even on days when BMC reported testing more than 10,000 people, it has recorded an average of 1,000 new cases daily. Civic officials and doctors say a downward trend has started in Mumbai, but they are now focused on reducing the mortality rate to one per cent. However, some doctors say cases are likely to increase as more unlocking takes place.
The BMC dashboard shows that in the last 15 days, around 1,23,948 highrisk and suspected patients had undergone Covid-19 testing, of whom 16,479 tested positive. There were 8,263 tests conducted on average per day, of which 1,000 were positive, daily. Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said, “The overall positive rate for the city is 21 per cent, but for the last 15 days, this has been between 10-15 per cent, which is a good sign, indicating that the curve is flattening and soon, the decline phase will start.”
Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the Covid-19 Taskforce said, in the city, cases have now plateaued though the case burden is still extant. Despite liberal testing, there has not been much change in the daily number of cases, which are gradually trending downward. “The recovery and doubling rates, however, have improved, but Mumbai has still not managed to bring down its fatality rate. Now, a lot depends on how we handle monsoon-related infections as well as the Covid-19 outbreak in the coming days,” he said.
However, senior doctors at civic-run hospitals said the city was adding a steady number of cases and deaths. "There is a possibility that we may see a jump in cases in the next two weeks, with some more unlocking being allowed. We were worried about the interaction between monsoon diseases and Covid, but we haven’t had many unusual presentations. Barring malaria, most monsoon diseases are under control,” said a doctor.