Mumbai adds 1,765 Covid cases, highest single-day tally since Jan 26

BMC officials said that the number of cases has gone up due to the increase in test numbers and it is closely monitoring the situation

Mumbai: With 1,765 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Mumbai on Wednesday, the city saw its highest single-day Covid tally since January 26, 2022, or in more than 130 days, as the latest outbreak wave in the country’s financial capital continued to expand at an alarming rate.

Mumbai adds 1,765 Covid cases, highest single-day tally since Jan 26

Wednesday’s tally was also the second day running that the city saw more than 1,000 daily infections. There were 1,242 new cases reported in Mumbai on Tuesday, according to data furnished by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). On Monday, there were 676 new cases.

To be sure, the situation in terms of other crucial on-the-ground Covid statistics such as hospitalisation and deaths appears to be well under control. As things stand on Wednesday, only 1.19% of the 24,598 hospital beds earmarked for Covid patients in the city are occupied, BMC data shows.

After Wednesday’s additions, the seven-day average of daily infections in the city — a statistic that represents a “case curve” of a region – has now climbed to 1,000 infections a day for the past week, against a low of 26 average cases a day for the week ended March 26. Just two weeks, this number was at an average of 219 cases a day, which means that the case rate in the city has now increased more than 350% in the past fortnight.

A total of 19,185 tests were carried out in the past 24 hours and the test positivity rate (TPR) stood at 9.19 % on Wednesday – up from 7.24 % on Tuesday, but below the levels of 10.9% and 9.8% seen on Sunday and Monday respectively.

The number of samples tested on Wednesday were also nearly twice as much as the daily average (10,187 tests a day) in the week preceding it, according to BMC data – a factor that may further explain the sudden spike in infections.

BMC officials said that the number of cases has gone up due to the increase in test numbers and it is closely monitoring the situation.

Dr Sanjeev Kumar, additional municipal commissioner and in-charge of the public health department in BMC said that there is no possibility of imposing fresh restrictions in the city. “There will be no new restrictions in the city unless the state government orders us to do so. Until and unless any new guideline comes into force from the state government, Mumbai will run normally like how it is running now at present,” he said. Pushed by infection numbers from Mumbai, even Maharashtra witnessed a significant surge in Covid-19 cases on Wednesday as it clocked 2,701 new cases. The statewide figure of 2,701 cases is the highest since February 17, when there were 2,797 new cases in the state. The state reported a daily positivity rate of 6.42%.

Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer in BMC said that the primary objective of increasing the number of tests in Mumbai is to identify the super-spreaders. “There is no specific area from where the cases are being reported. Most of the asymptomatic patients are unaware that they are infected until they have been tested positive. We have maximised our tests in hospitals and taken samples of all the patients who are looking for new admissions as well,” said Dr Gomare.