With 8.45 % and 8.42%, death rate, city's H (East) ward which covers (Bandra E, Khar) and M (West) (Chembur,Tilak Nagar) have emerged as the areas with highest Covid-19 fatality rate among all 24 administrative wards respectively, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) data as of July 17. Fatality rate is the percentage of deaths due to Covid-19 compared to the total cases. The city’s average fatality rate is 5.54% and the state’s average is 4.5%.
However, K (E) ward which constitutes Andheri East and Jogeshwari has recorded 416, the highest number of deaths across the city till date, followed by G (N) (Dharavi, Dadar, Mahim) with 413 deaths as on July 17.
As per the data of BMC as on Saturday, H (East) ward which has chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s personal residence Matoshree has recorded 3821 Covid-19 cases and 323 deaths. Meanwhile, M (West) ward has recorded 2944 coronavirus cases and 248 deaths so far. The ward has a fatality rate of 8.2%, with 3, 587 cases and 297 deaths.
Fatality rate of L ward Kurla-Sakinaka too is high with 8.23 per cent followed by M (east) Govandi Mankhurd ward with 7.63%. While Kurla has reported 4,702 cases and 387 deaths; Govandi-Mankhurd have recorded 3,669 Covid cases and 280 deaths.
According to experts and BMC officials, a fatality rate of 8% or above indicates eight deaths or above for every 100 cases in those wards.
Other wards with high fatality rate are B ward (Dongri, Bhendi Bazaar, Masjid Bunder, Mohammed Ali road) with 7.74 %, G (South) (Worli, Elphinstone) with 7.37% and G (North) ward with 6.93%.
Meanwhile, areas with the lowest fatality rates include are A ward (Churchgate-Nariman Point) with 2.44%, R-South ward (Kandivli) with 2.82% and T ward (Mulund, Nahur) with 2.92%.
On June 30, BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal and his team of senior civic officials launched ‘Saving Lives’ strategy to reduce the fatality rate. BMC had noted that several deaths occurred between 1am and 5am, often when serious and critical patients disconnect oxygen support and leave their beds to go to the toilet. They end up straining themselves and collapse. As part of the Save Lives strategy, the civic body decided to keep a bedpan for every bed and a commode near every four beds and instructed all healthcare staff to cooperate with patients who want to use the toilet at night. Several other such measures were introduced as part of the strategy for all health centres.
"The overall death rates across the city are improving as compared to May and June after we implemented our ‘Saving Lives’ strategy. Under this saving lives strategy, we categorise cases into critical, moderate, mild and asymptomatic patients. Treatment protocol includes more detailed, monitoring of individual cases and supervision of critical patients, including video surveillance by the head of the unit and head of the hospital and senior doctors," said Chahal.
