Active Covid cases over 10,000-mark in Mumbai, 2,922 fresh infections in state

A day after recording nearly 2,000 new cases, the daily caseload in Mumbai declined slightly on Saturday. This can be attributed to the drop in testing from 15,346 conducted on Friday to 14,227 tests on Saturday, said officials. The test positivity rate (TPR) — the number of positive cases out of the total tests conducted — increased to 12.26 per cent within the last 24 hours.

Of the 1,745 new patients, who tested positive on Saturday, only 99 (5.6 per cent) required hospitalisation. On Saturday, 66 patients were admitted to ICU and 34 patients were on oxygen support. The active cases in Mumbai stood at 10,047 on Saturday.

“Most patients are asymptomatic and recovering within two to three days. The patients, who need ICU are mainly aged people with co-morbidities. Some of them haven’t taken the booster doses,” said Dr Mangala Gomare, BMC executive health officer.

On the gradual drop in testing, an official said that unlike earlier, passengers at railway stations and bus terminals aren’t undergoing mandatory Covid-19 testing, which has decreased the daily testing rate. “As seen during the third wave, the travellers and their close contacts constituted a major part of the testing drive…. Same with genome sequencing, we are getting few samples, delaying the process,” the official added.

Now, with the arrival of the monsoon on Saturday, the civic body also cautioned citizens about similar symptoms considered as seasonal infection. It advised citizens to avoid delays in treatment.

According to the public health department, a 37-year-old male was detected with BA.5 – a variant of Omicron – in Pune on June 2. The patient had mild symptoms and recovered in home isolation.