Maharashtra’s daily Covid caseload breaches 3000-mark, Mumbai inches towards 2000

Mumbai: The daily Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra breached the 3000-mark on Friday, as the state reported 3,081 fresh infections with no fatalities

Mumbai: The daily Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra breached the 3000-mark on Friday, as the state reported 3,081 fresh infections with no fatalities. Meanwhile, Mumbai is inching towards the 2000-mark as the city added 1,956 cases.

Dr Wiqar Shaikh, professor of medicine, Grant Medical College, and Sir JJ Hospital, questioned the logic of the government for not imposing the mask mandate. “Is the government waiting for cases to spread exponentially and then make masks compulsory? Questioned Dr Shaikh. (Vijay Bate/HT Photo)

Mumbai crossed the 10% Test Positivity Rate (TPR) on Friday recording 12.74 % of the total 15,346 tests conducted in the last 24 hours. On Thursday, TPR was 9.64%. The state recorded a TPR of 7.54% as there were 3081 cases of the total 40,822 tests conducted in the last 24 hours. On Thursday, the TPR of the state stood at 6.42%.

Dr Sanjeev Kumar, additional municipal commissioner and in charge of public health in BMC, said that “Unless the state government orders fresh curbs in Mumbai, the city will function normally like how it is doing now.”

As on Friday, there were 9,191 active cases in Mumbai and a total of 763 patients were discharged in the past 24 hours. Currently, the rate of hospitalisation is 1.48% and 1,873 or 96% of the 1,956 cases reported on Friday are asymptomatic.

“The numbers are rising because of the increase in tests. We are awaiting a detailed report from the National Institute of Virology, to understand if there has been a new sub-lineage of the virus. Because so far, most of the infections are being caused due to the Omicron variant,” said Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

State Surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate assured that the situation is under control. “The Covid-19 cases are confined to specific pockets like Pune, Mumbai, and areas adjacent to Mumbai like Thane, Palghar, and Raigad. We are hardly seeing any cases across the state like what happened during the third wave,” said Dr Awate. “We are seeing a doubling of the cases taking weeks-time while during the third wave, the cases used to double within two and half days,” he added.

Awate said the State Government will take the decision on making masks compulsory shortly.

Dr Wiqar Shaikh, professor of medicine, Grant Medical College, and Sir JJ Hospital, questioned the logic of the government for not imposing the mask mandate. “Is the government waiting for cases to spread exponentially and then make masks compulsory? Questioned Dr Shaikh. “If the cases increase, there is bound to be hospitalisation and subsequent deaths,” he added. “Making masks compulsory and imposing fines on violators will force people to wear them. This appeal business will not work….Mask mandate will bring down the cases significantly and help us to tackle the impending fourth wave,” he added.