COVID-19: Mumbai's daily caseload may soon cross 10,000, says Maha task force member

Maharashtra COVID-19 task force member Dr Shashank Joshi has said that cases in Mumbai are rising exponentially and may soon cross 10,000 in the next few days. He further urged people not to panic but to be cautious and behave responsibly.

"Mumbai Cases are exponentially exploding today 8000 plus cases anticipated and soon will cross 10000 in next few days key will be still the severe cases and who need hospitalisation. Behave Responsibly and Double Mask. Dont Panic but be super cautious and careful," Dr Joshi tweeted.

The city reported 6,347 fresh Covid-19 cases with one death and 451 recoveries on Saturday, a jump of 12 per cent of 5,631 infections from Friday.

The state also registered 9,170 new cases and seven deaths on Saturday. The fatality rate has now increased to 2.11 per cent in the state. A total of 1,445 patients from the state were also discharged on Saturday.

Meanwhile, six new Omicron cases were reported in the state including three from Pune rural, two from Pimpri-Chinchwad and one from Pune city, taking the total count for Maharashtra to 460 patients. Out of these, 180 were discharged after negative RT-PCR tests.

“The number of Covid patients are increasing in the state. If the number of patients increases at the same rate, we will have no choice but to declare a lockdown in the state. But at this stage, hospitalisation is less in the city,” said Aslam Shaikh, guardian minister.

The state health minister Rajesh Tope on Saturday also ruled out a lockdown at this stage. “At this stage, we are not thinking about the lockdown, but we will strictly implement the rules in the state. If the need for oxygen crosses 700 metric tonnes, then we could declare a lockdown,” Tope said.

(With agency inputs)