Covid-19: Big dip in Mumbai cases, the worst may be over

MUMBAI: Almost a month after Mumbai registered its worst single-day tally of 11,206 Covid-19 cases, the graph of the second wave dipped sharply on Monday, with 2,624 cases detected in a 24-hour period. While the 23,542 tests done to detect these cases were lower than the city's daily average of 44,000 (in April), officials said the worst appears to be over as far as the second wave is concerned.
However, the daily toll continued to be high with 78 deaths recorded on Monday, showing a daily case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.9%, almost twice the daily CFR reported last week. BMC officials have maintained that the daily toll will plateau this week and start dropping thereafter. The city's tally so far is 6.58 lakh cases and 13,372 deaths.
Similarly, Maharashtra reported a 15% dip in daily detection and fatalities on Monday, the second consecutive day of a decline in cases. The state reported 48,621 cases and 567 deaths, taking total cases to 47.7 lakh while the toll touched 70,851.
Officials said daily detections were down owing to fewer tests over the weekend and fatalities had dipped due to delay in updating data. The state conducted 2.1 lakh tests in the last 24 hours, a dip from the 2.5-2.7 lakh tests it conducts during the weekdays.
“Mumbai's daily positivity rate is low (11.3%) though we did fewer tests over the weekend,” said additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani. In contrast, positivity rate on April 4 was 30%.
BMC commissioner I S Chahal, in a statement on Monday, said “our aggressive testing policy has resulted in reduction of positivity rate.”
However, he noted that there has been a reduction in demand for tests in the last few days. “It has been the consistent policy of MCGM to do maximum testing to flush out coronavirus from Mumbai’s environment” he said.