
MUMBAI ON Friday recorded 1,646 new Covid-19 cases, reaching the highest daily case load compared to what the city last saw four months ago.
However, as opposed to over 40 deaths a day, which the city had been recording in October when it was seeing over 1,600 daily cases, it is now recording deaths in single digits. Four deaths were reported on Friday by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) due to coronavirus, taking the total Covid-19 toll to 11,519. Mumbai now has 12,487 active infections. Of them, less than 500 are critical.
On Friday, 1,122 people recovered from Covid-19. The city’s recovery rate stands at 93 per cent. Civic officials said most people are mildly infected and prefer home isolation. Even if cases surge, hospitalisation is very few.
Of 13,536 isolation beds, over 40 per cent are occupied. There are still over 8,000 vacant beds. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said they still have lots of ICUs and ventilators available if hospitalisations increase. At present, of 1,534, 705 ICUs are vacant, and of 942 ventilators, 407 are available.
What has worried state officials is the city’s rising positivity rate, just like the rest of Maharashtra. Mumbai’s positively rate stands at 7.9 per cent, up from 4.5 per cent until last month.
The state government on Friday directed districts with rising positivity rate to increase contact tracing. Mumbai is set to receive more vaccine doses to increase daily vaccinations as the city plans to keep vaccination centres open till late at night.
On Friday, 44,264 people got immunised, of them 33,251 are senior citizens and people with comorbidities, while 4,929 and 6,084 are front line workers and health workers respectively.