Mumbai’s daily Covid cases have dropped by 79.20 per cent in the last three weeks. Civic data reveals that the city recorded 803 cases on February 1 in a single day and by February 20, this had come down to 167. Covid deaths too have declined across Mumbai. Officials have attributed this drop to the aggressive measures taken to curb cases, including testing and tracking international passengers, contact tracing and following up on home quarantine patients.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said, authorities had been well-prepared to handle the third wave of Covid-19, for which they had modified some of the guidelines and had acted based on that, which had helped curb cases as soon as possible. Moreover, they had directed all the ward officers and health staff to focus on testing and contact-tracing, which had helped them detect whether cases were symptomatic or asymptomatic.
“We had all the measures in place to handle Covid cases and our predictions were accurate, which helped us modify our guidelines or testing protocols. The Central government had directed to conduct RT-PCR of international passengers coming to Mumbai from high-risk countries but we tested each and every international passenger and their contacts, to restrict the spread of virus,” he said.
Kakani further added that they were constantly following up on patients who were home-quarantined and conducting RT-PCR testing after five days of quarantine. “We are doing over 35,000 tests but still, the TPR is not even one per cent, which clearly shows that we have now reached the lowest point in this wave. Moreover, the virulence of the virus has decreased, as more than 95 per cent are fully vaccinated, and this played a vital role in controlling cases,” Kakani added.
Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the state Covid-19 taskforce, said that there was a downward trend in new cases. “The vaccination rate is also good, which is why it is unlikely that there would be a thick tail. However, Covid-appropriate behaviour should be followed and vulnerable citizens should be extra-cautious,” he said.
Senior health officials said that the situation in the city was akin to that in October last year, when the second wave was on the decline. The current decline in daily caseload that started last month is indicative of a fading third wave, they said. “In the second wave, it took around three months to reach the lowest tally in a day but in the case of the third wave, it is expected to end by March, unless a new variant emerges. It also means we need to be cautious as we go about reopening everything. The order to further ease restrictions is likely to be issued by Monday,” said a senior official from the civic health department.
