Expressing concern over the rising cases of Omicron variant of the Covid in the city, the Bombay high court said on Monday that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) must not leave any stone unturned in ensuring that residents of Mumbai remained safe from the rapidly rising cases of the Omicron variant.
The HC also directed the BMC to implement precautionary measures and the guidelines issued by the Maharashtra government on managing covid related healthcare resources such as oxygen supply, hospital beds, essential medicines etc.
CJ said: “We hope and trust that the BMC shall not leave any stone unturned to ensure that the health of the general public because of emergence and spread of Omicron, is not compromised.”
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik was hearing public interest litigation filed last year seeking several directions to the BMC and the Maharashtra government on management of healthcare resources related to Covid-19.
BMC counsel Anil Sakhre told the HC that the civic body was adequately prepared to tackle the current situation of covid cases in the city. He filed an affidavit detailing the availability of hospital beds, oxygen supply etc., and the details of anti covid vaccines administered to city residents so far.
As per the affidavit, in the last three weeks, while the number of patients contracting Covid, including the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus had increased, the number of such patients requiring hospitalisation, or intensive care was “minimal”.
The city saw 1,17,437 active cases of Covid-19. Of these, 7,432 cases were admitted to hospitals. Only 814 such cases required ICU admission, and only three per cent of the total cases required oxygen beds in the hospitals, states the BMC affidavit.
The civic body also told HC that a total of 1,00,31,137 people in the city, who were above the age of 18, had received at least the first dose of anti-covid vaccine. 82,76,199 people above the age of 18 had received both doses of the vaccine, it said.
The BMC also said in its affidavit that it has targeted to vaccinate a total of 6,12,461 people between the ages of 15 and 18 years and the first dose of the vaccine to such age group had been administered to 65,289 people, which came to around 11 per cent of the target population.
The HC has kept the PIL for further hearing next week.
