Fourth wave in Mumbai? City reports nearly 2000 fresh COVID cases; active cases reach 9,000

Maharashtra reported 3,081 cases on Friday, with 1,967 being reported from Mumbai alone – the highest single day recorded cases since January 23 (2,550 cases). With this, the city’s daily test positivity rate (TPR) has touched 13 per cent from 9.64 per cent on Thursday. However, no deaths were reported on Friday.

Dr Ishwar Gilada, a consultant in HIV and infectious diseases and secretary-general of the Organised Medicine Academic Guild-OMAG, said that the number of Covid cases is rising, not merely in Mumbai or Maharashtra, but also in Kerala, which is one-fourth of Maharashtra, but with more cases than us. “Significantly, these are the two states that had driven the third wave. The only noticeable change has been the possibility of BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron driving the surge, coupled with low speed of vaccination,” he said.

Dr Gilada said that as long as the demand for beds and oxygen is not increasing, and deaths are not happening, there is no cause of concern. “The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 will continue to be seen as the ‘variant of support’ rather than a ‘variant of concern’. However, Covid appropriate behaviour in crowded places, especially indoors, should be brought back,” he said.

Dr Gilada adds that the cumulative case fatality rate (CFR) of India is 1.2 per cent and for Maharashtra it’s 1.87 per cent. However, the BMC/ state health departments should clearly mention that figure as ‘cumulative CFR’ (from the beginning of the pandemic, that includes the fatal Delta wave a year back). “They should also mention that the current CFR is very low and which, according to me, is ~0.1% just like in flu,” he said.