Mumbai: Prospect of travel in festive season raises Covid fears

Mumbai: There are fears that intra-state travel and socialising in the coming festive season could push up Covid-19 cases in the city and Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
Lakhs of people travel to their hometowns in Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, Satara, Kolhapur to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. Some of these districts still report cases in big numbers even as detections in Mumbai have dropped below 300. Pune, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli are recording more than 300-600 cases daily. As far as variants are concerned, the highest number of emerging Delta-plus cases have been found in Ratnagiri.
“If Covid-appropriate behaviour is not followed, people travelling from the city could be carrying the infection back,” said Dr Avinash Supe, former KEM dean and head of the state’s Covid death audit committee. “That’s how variants could enter the city too. We have to take utmost care about inter-district travel and ensure that all Covid protocols are followed,” he said.
Dr Shashank Joshi, the state Covid taskforce member, said Kerala too saw a surge after festivities. “We need to be mindful that festivities become public health challenges as there is congregation and overcrowding,” he said. “Further, with Delta in transmission, the infection can spread very fast if precautions are not taken,” he said, urging people to celebrate at home as much as possible.
It is also unlikely there will be inter-district travel curbs for the festive season. "We are closely monitoring infection rate in the Konkan districts--Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg-- which see a lot of travel from the Mumbai region during Ganpati. Also, district administrations can be empowered to add local restrictions in case they see a surge," said an official.
Additional commissioner Suresh Kakani said people can only be urged to get tested promptly if they develop symptoms. He said Mumbai will use genome sequencing to trace variants in people with travel history.
Officials hope that guidelines to downsize the festival will be sufficient to dial down spirits. They believe further curtailing of festivities will be tricky as most parties are trying to appease native sentiments ahead of the BMC elections slated early next year.
"There are a lot of people from Konkan who vote in Mumbai and their sentiments ahead of the elections will be important. The government will have to work out a balance,” said an official. A solution could be to allow fully vaccinated people to travel or seek RT-PCR negative reports as is mandated in air travel as well, said Dr Rahul Pandit, a taskforce member.