MUMBAI: The city’s Covid case fatality rate (CFR) has dropped below 4% for the first time since mid-June. It was 3.9% on Sunday, after soaring to as high as 6% in May, reports Sumitra Deb Roy. CFR is the ratio of deaths to the number of positive patients.
Mumbai recorded 908 cases and 25 deaths on Sunday, taking the case tally to 2,58,405 and fatalities to 10,318. It has reported fewer than 1,000 cases for the second day in a row.
Meanwhile, the state for the second day in a row recorded a little over 5,000 Covid-19 cases (5,369).
The state’s case tally touched 16,83,775 on Sunday.
The death toll rose to 44,024 with an addition of 113 fatalities. Just a day earlier, only 74 deaths were reported, the lowest addition in the state in 159 days.
The active cases for the state stood at 1,25,109, accounting for 22% of the country’s overall count of 5.7 lakh active cases.
The city’s CFR saw an overnight spurt on June 16 when 917 deaths were added as part of data reconciliation. The process pushed the city’s cumulative CFR to 5.25% from 3.79%.
Additional municipal commissioner
Suresh Kakani said that the deaths were on a decline, but the aim was to further reduce the death rate.
“We want it lower than that, and hence we are carrying out the ‘My Family My responsibility’ campaign to pick up cases early,” he said, adding that the firming up of treatment protocols over the months and better understanding of the disease by doctors had helped reduced deaths to a great deal. The weekly CFR has already come below 2% for the city, a civic official said. Kakani said that the BMC is also introducing more labs for free testing so that people get tested as soon as they develop symptoms.
The state’s CFR is hovering around 2.61%, which is the second-highest in the country after Punjab (3.14%). India’s Covid mortality rate has now dropped to 1.49%. Dr Subhash Salunkhe, a member of the state’s technical committee, said that deaths within 48 hours continue to be very high in the state.
“Cities like Mumbai, Pune, Thane definitely have room for improvement,” he said. He, though, underlined that the data transparency of many states was questionable.
Neighbouring cities, too, saw a decline in cases. As many as 176 new Covid-19 positive cases were reported in Thane city on Sunday, taking the tally of the infected to 46,842 while three deaths took the virus toll to 1155. The recovery rate in Thane was 93.1% with 43,623 patients recovered till date and only 2,064 active cases left.
Kalyan-Dombivli reported 130 cases and three deaths, taking the tally of patients to 50,194, including the 1,006 deaths so far. The recovery rate in the city was 94.7% and only 1,652 patients were undergoing treatment.
The state’s recovery rate has touched 90% with 15.14 lakh discharges.