Mumbai: The Maximum City has witnessed a 79 per cent rise in the number of corona cases in the month of September, surpassing the civic body’s estimates. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had predicted that the Covid-19 cases would reach 1,91,000 by October 4, whereas the number of positive cases in Mumbai was 2,13,000 by then. Civic officials and experts have attributed this surge to the irresponsible human behaviour with regard to following the social distancing norms or wearing a mask.
According to the BMC data, the city had recorded 60,301 covid-19 cases in September compared to 33,606 cases in August. The average daily load cases were almost double from 1084 in August to 2010 last month. Moreover, the city has recorded 18,412 cases in the first nine days of October. This indicates more rapid growth of Covid-19 cases than anticipated by city authorities.
On Wednesday, 2,838 Covid-19 cases, the highest so far, were reported in Mumbai, followed by 2,823 cases on Thursday and 2,289 fresh cases on Friday. The total number of cases has reached 2,25,000 in the city so far. “There are many factors due to which our prediction has failed and the number of daily infections has been hitting a record frequently. Now, there are more relaxation following citizens itself are not following the basic protocols of wearing mask and it is also learnt the fear of novel coronavirus amongst the individuals have reduced,” said Suresh Kakani, Additioal Municipal Commissioner, BMC. Moreover, they have so far collected more than Rs 70 lakh as fine for not wearing the masks.
Dr Lancelot Pinto, Consultant Pulmonologist, P.D Hinduja Hospital & MRC, said the physical distancing in a city like Mumbai is difficult, and with every successive unlocking, maintaining distance is going to get more challenging. The least we can do to protect ourselves is masking. “When I look all around me, it is possibly less than 10 percent individuals who are masked properly, covering both the nose and the mouth. The combination of increasing crowds and improper masking is what probably going to be reflected in spikes of infections at every successive ease in the lockdown. We will need to be extremely cautious with festivals approaching, and the consequent crowds shopping and celebrating,” he said.
Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state’s Covid-19 task force, said the human behaviour plays an important role for viral transmission and the Covid-19 being unpredictable, the biology of the virus is not a mathematical model. During the festival season, citizens did not wear masks or follow rules of social distancing, which led to the surge in cases in the following days. “I want to advise citizens to not remove masks while speaking, or while they are in the toilet. Avoid removing masks as much as possible,” he said.
