‘Real situation is 22K active cases’

95K TOTAL CASES Municipal chief says of the 22K, 7,500 are in hospitals, rest in home quarantine, Mumbai need not fear

That is how our fatality rate jumped from 2.9% to 6% in a day. I say either the rest of the country should say there have been no home deaths, or they should comply [with the rules]. Mumbai has exercised its choice by stepping up, in the process spoiling our record, but we have been transparent.

Has BMC completed reconciling previous death figures?

The backlog of reporting old deaths that have occurred in hospitals is clear. From July 3, all deaths that BMC announces at the end of the day in its press note have occurred in the past 48 hours only. I started imposing this discipline from June 8, and it has taken me 24-25 days to put it in check. But we are now examining the reason for deaths of patients outside the hospital, also these unreported home deaths. We are still trying to locate their papers. This will be a continuous process. It is very easy to decide the reason of death for a patient who passed away in a hospital, because all case papers are available. But what about patients who passed away in their homes? There is this one case that was brought to my notice. One expatriat woman came from Europe, and one day she was found dead in her house. Later, her maid and driver also died in their homes in slums. These deaths may not have been accounted for yet.

Are there instances where a cured and discharged patient has died at home after recovery?

Yes there are, but not more than five to seven people. There are only two such cases known to me. One was a policeman who was discharged on Day 14, and he passed away on Day 22. He was co-morbid. Maybe, he got a heart attack. The behaviour of the virus is not known to anyone in the world. In some cases, an asymptomatic unidentified Covid-19 positive case has infected others and those persons have died. There was a case in Nariman Point in a family of nine, including four doctors. They called a person home for massage on a Sunday. One member got the massage done from an asymptomatic positive. He transferred the virus to all nine people, and four died. The world is still not aware of the complexity of the virus. That is why these cases are happening.

(5,405 deaths) (2,138 deaths) (1,152 deaths) (345 deaths) (361 deaths) (221 deaths) (357 deaths) (23 deaths) (95 deaths) (69 deaths) (78 deaths) (20 deaths) (85 deaths)

MAHARASHTRA (47 deaths) (26 deaths) (32 deaths) (37 deaths) (37 deaths) (19 deaths) (27 deaths) (14 deaths) (17 deaths) (17 deaths) (2 deaths) (11 deaths) (5 deaths) (5 deaths) (5 deaths) (7 deaths)

Mission Zero started in June. Has it been successful?

Yesterday [Monday], there were 18 containment zones in northern wards, and 14 containment zones had zero cases in the past 14 days. So this is a good sign.

(3 deaths)

You took charge over two months ago. What has been your priority? Has it changed?

When I took charge, I was aware that the battle against Covid-19 can go on for one more year from today, if the vaccine doesn’t come. No one can claim that I can make cases zero, without a vaccine. The Covid war is going to be fought long term, over six or eight months, or a year. Unless systems are built and everything is on autopilot, it will not work. Everyday one cannot manually coordinate bed and ambulance availability. It has to happen naturally. It came to my mind on day one that there needs to be a standard operating procedure on autopilot as this is a long-term battle.

There are four pillars to this fight – testing labs, ambulances, hospital beds and doctors. If these four things are tied up, the problem will be solved. We are concentrating on field weapons such as testing, tracing, tracking, quarantining and treatment. In case of testing labs in Mumbai, a report that used to take days to come now comes in 24 hours. In the past one month, not a single report has come after 24 hours. It came from Metropolis, and I suspended them for three weeks. Now they have fallen in line.