Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Navi Mumbai sees 75% dip in 3 weeks
Civic body records only 288 cases, down from 1,000-plus on April 17; attributes it to efficient network and coordination
NAVI MUMBAI: While most of the cities in the state are still struggling to get a hold over the everincreasing Covid cases, Navi Mumbai has brought down the cases by about 75 per cent in the last 26 days.
The city, which recorded more than 1,000 daily cases till April 17, is now down to 288 cases as on May 6.
A joint effort by all the departments and a strong network between the general practitioners, physicians and High Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) centres along with the health department of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) led to the decrease in the cases, said assistant civic chief, Sanjay Kakade.
Besides, a strict implementation of the lockdown norms helped in the reduction of the positive cases per day.
On April 15, NMMC had reported 1,184 positive cases with 13.70 per cent positivity rate. On April 30, a 9.36 per cent positivity rate was reported with 524 cases and on May 6, it further went down to 4.50 per cent positivity rate with 288 cases.
“Ever since the lockdown was declared, we had been strictly making sure that no shops are open after 11am and there is no crowding at any spot. Our teams at ward levels made sure that the lockdown rules are being followed at all places. Even the morning and evening walkers were penalised and made to take antigen tests. Fortunately, none was found positive. We will continue to get the walkers tested and if found positive, would be kept in institutional isolation,” Kakade said.
The contact tracing of 1:28 was being followed at all ward levels. A video conferencing with all the general practitioners, physicians and HRCT centres heads was conducted wherein all were given specific instructions.
“The physicians and general practitioners were told to keep a tab on all their patients who had symptoms of flu, cough and fever. They were given guidelines to recommend RT-PCR test compulsorily if they had any symptoms and the same was to be informed to the corporation daily,” Kakade said.
It was noticed that many patients who found any symptom would avoid a RT-PCR test and get HRCT done. Hence, the HRCT centres were asked to inform about all such patients approaching them for scan without RT-PCR. When in doubt, the HRCT centre was asked to take the oxygen saturation level of the patient and also recommend an RT-PCR test. “The corporation then did a follow up of those patients who had approached the HRCT centre for scan and kept a tab if their RT-PCR was positive,” Kakade said.
The corporation had different strategies for gaothan areas and the sector nodes. “For gaothan areas, we had Asha workers and Anganwadi workers spreading awareness among the people and also reporting to us about any symptoms of any of the residents. We also strictly institutionally isolated the close contacts of the positive patient in order to avoid any further spread. Besides, the general practitioners too kept us in the loop about all their patients,” Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) head of Turbhe, Dr Kailas Gaikwad, said.
The corporation’s laboratory in Nerul, which conducts around 3,500 tests daily, has been running full-fledged along with the antigen tests and the private labs. “Since there are no trains running now, the number of antigen tests at railway stations has gone down. The cases at private labs wherein people used to go voluntarily have also gone down. This is a good sign. We are now working on another lab with similar capacity, which is expected to start operations in a few weeks,” NMMC chief, Abhijit Bangar, said.
A strict stand towards the positive patients above 50 years helped the corporation get most of them admitted to the facilities.
“Continuous calls from the corporation asking them to get admitted instead of staying back at home yielded results and now only 350 of them are in home quarantine,” Kakade said.
In most of the 50 years-plus patients, the complications increased at the later stage and they’d start hunting for hospitals. Hence, the corporation made it mandatory for the 50 years-plus patients to be institutionally quarantined.