Mumbai: 32 of 33 Dharavi cops recover from Covid infection

MUMBAI: Dharavi police set an example by making 100 per cent recovery from Covid-19 as 32 cops out of total 33 who had tested positive for coronavirus infection recovered and will join duties shortly.
Till Wednesday, 19 cops from the city police had succumbed to Covid and around 1,526 from the state police force had tested positive for the infection. Earlier, 27 out of 33 cops from JJ Marg police and 18 out of 27 from Sahar had recovered from the infection and had resumed their duties last week.
The achievement of Dharavi police assumes significance as this area is one of the worst affected zones in the city.
"Except one cop, everyone from my police station has recovered. One constable was in ICU but he too has been shifted to general ward and showing progress,” said Ramesh Nagre senior inspector of Dharavi police. Sources said that 10 cops from Shahu Nagar, including the senior inspector Vilas Gangawane who had tested positive for Covid and were admitted in different hospitals too have been discharged /quarantined and will join by next week. Last month, assistant police inspector Amol Kulkarni of Shahu Nagar had succumbed to Covid.
"Those who resumed work were given a warm welcome at the police stations by their colleagues. Many of our men are recovering or are in quarantine. The mortality rate in policemen is only 1 per cent," said Naval Bajaj, joint commissioner of police.
Bajaj said that for maintaining the immunity and physical fitness of police personnel, they have been provided tablets of HCQ (13,000 tablets), vitamin C,D and Zinc (15 lakh tablets) and homeopathic medicines besides providing protective gears like PPE kits, hand gloves, masks and sanitisers. He further said that the government has also set up two dedicated hospitals at Marol and Kalina and have tied up with private hospitals in case they have emergency and serious cases.
Five squads have been prepared for spraying and fogging at all the police stations, divisions, crime branch, special branch, traffic branch etc. of Mumbai Police for preventing the spread of coronavirus. For each of these squads one police van, one fogger machine, one spraying machine, water tanks for spraying, chemicals for spraying and PPE kits, N-95 masks, hand gloves, crocs shoes, sanitiser etc for the protection of personnel in the squad have been provided. Two fogging machines and two sprayer machines have been kept in reserve. All these squads have been given adequate training and also provided chemicals such as sodium chloride for spraying and Virex 256 for fogging. The squad members have also been training for creating mixture of water of chemicals for these spray and fogger machines at police stations and crime branch and other offices.