Ahead of Diwali, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Monday has asked citizens to celebrate the festival cautiously and carefully to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Iqbal Singh Chahal said that while active cases have fallen down by 29.2% in the past one month and fatality rate has also dipped, but citizens should still act cautiously and carefully during Diwali.
"The death rate for the month of October has been 2.5 per cent and the cumulative death rate has fallen from 4.4 per cent to 3.9 per cent," said municipal commissioner.
The BMC chief said that the availability of COVID-19 beds has risen from 4,986 to 7,817 beds, while the number of vacant ICU beds has increased from 225 to 561 now.
Chahal also said that as compared to average daily testing of around 6,500 in August, the daily testing has also has gone up to 14,000-16,000. While, the discharge of patients has also climbed to 89 per cent from 82 per cent. This Chahal attributed to the My Family My Responsibility awareness campaign launched from September 15 by the Maharashtra government.
The BMC chief said that under the campaign, BMC teams have visited 34.9 lakh families twice, out of total number of 35.2 lakh families in Mumbai, to physically check their health status and create awareness about COVID-19 protocols. Chahal further added that more than 1.5 lakh citizens were fined for not wearing masks/spitting and another estimated 5 lakh would be fined this month if found without masks or spitting.
Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 706 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest daily count in more than two months, taking its tally to 2,59,114 on Monday, the BMC said. This was the lowest daily COVID-19 count in nearly 70 days. Earlier on August 25, the city had reported 587 cases.
According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) update data, the death toll in the city reached 10,305 with 30 fresh fatalities reported in the past 24-hours. The number of recovered patients also increased to 2,30,602 with 1,064 more people discharged from hospitals, the civic body said.
