As the testing figures have fallen in the last few days in Mumbai, Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal has appealed to Mumbaikars to come forward for COVID-19 testing to increase the testing to the maximum possible level.
"It has been the consistent policy of BMC to do maximum testing to flush out Coronavirus from Mumbai’s environment. Our highest single day testing from March 2020 till 10th February, 2021( when the second wave hit Mumbai) was 24,500," Chahal added.
However, immediately thereafter the testing touched 56,000 tests on a single day in April with average daily testing in the month of April touching nearly 44,000 per day.
"It has been observed that the testing figures have fallen in last few days from 50,000 + to 38,000 a day before yesterday and 28,000 yesterday. It’s likely to fall further during weekends," Chahal noted.
He also said that the aggressive testing policy of BMC has resulted in the reduction of the positivity rate and thus it might have reduced the natural demand for home collection of swabs by in the last few days.
"We need to increase the testing to 40,000 per day, at least, if not more," he added while appealing more people to come forward for testing.
Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 79 deaths due to coronavirus on Sunday (May 2) which pushed its fatality count to 13,330, the data released by the civic body said.
With the addition of 3,672 new COVID-19 cases during the day, the city's infection tally rose to 6,56,204.
This is for the fifth time this month, the city has reported less than 4,000 cases in a day. On May 1, it had recorded 3,908 cases.
But the number of deaths has been on the rise in the city over the last few days and Saturday's toll is the highest since June 30 last year, when it had recorded 93 fatalities.
On Tuesday, Mumbai has reported 2,597 cases.
