BMC ramps up infra to tackle case spike

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is ramping up health care infrastructure to tackle a surge in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the financial capital of Mumbai, the city which has so far accounted for a fifth of India’s cases, even as the authority’s worst-case projection pegs the likely number of infections in the city by the end of this month at 75,000.

On Wednesday, the total number of cases in Mumbai stood at 10,714 cases, with 412 people dying of the infectious disease. There are 2,083 containment zones in the city.

“The way to deal with this situation is to be prepared. We should not be taken by surprise at a later date, and caught scrambling for resources. Mumbai is better off overestimating the extent of the spread of Covid-19. To be prepared, we need hospital and quarantine beds to match our projected figures; we need more doctors to attend to patients being treated at hospitals, more nurses, personal protective equipment (PPE) for our front line staff,” a senior BMC officer said on condition of anonymity.

The BMC is preparing to convert Mumbai’s large open spaces, playgrounds and sports complexes into temporary quarantine centres or Covid Care Centres (CCCs). The Mahalaxmi Race Course is set to house 200 isolation beds in its parking lot, the Mahim Nature Park will have 600 beds, the Richardson and Cruddas factory near JJ Hospital will have 200 beds, the Bandra Kurla Complex’s exhibition grounds are set to house 500 beds, the Nehru Science Centre will have 100 beds and the Andheri Sports complex will have 100 beds.

With these, among others, the present capacity of 14,000 beds will be expanded to 34,000 beds, according to the official.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is also readying 350 municipal schools to create an additional capacity of 35,000 beds.

As approximately 60% of the total cases are asymptomatic, the city needs to ramp up the number of beds at Covid Care Centres alongside increasing the number of available hospital beds, experts say.

“We have decided to move asymptomatic patients to CCCs so that the hospital beds can be made available for patients who need attention,” said municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi.

High-risk contacts of Covid19-positive patients, who were earlier being moved to Covid Care Centres, are now being asked to quarantine themselves at home, unless they live in small houses shared by more family members.

“We are able to make more Covid Care Centre beds available for asymptomatic positive patients,” an official said.