Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is soon to rethink its decision on dismantling the makeshift jumbo centres at Dahisar, Goregaon, Malad, Sion and Kanjurmarg. This comes after the study published by the researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K)'s researchers claiming that there will be a fourth wave of coronavirus soon in June. Earlier the civic body had decided to retain only three jumbo covid centres Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Byculla (Richardson and Cruddas) and Worli(NSCI) along with the Seven Hills hospital in Marol and dismantled others. Civic officials said they will be holding meetings with the TaskForce members and a decision on dismantling covid jumbo centres or keeping them standby will be taken. However, they have directed the ward officers to shut all CCC1 and CCC2 amid drops in daily covid cases.
According to the mathematical modelling study done by IIT Kanpur researchers, it suggests that the fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India may start around June 22 and peak from mid to late August. The study used a statistical model to make the prediction. But the severity of the cases will rely on the nature of the variant and the Covid vaccination status across India.
Suresh Kakani, an additional municipal commissioner, said there have been many predictions and mathematical calculations in the past and they have been prepared for everything. For now, decisions on jumbo covid centres have been kept on hold, while all covid care centres (CCC1) will be shut as there are hardly any patients getting admitted.
“As the cases have drastically dropped and we are moving towards endemic due to which decision on retaining three jumbo covid centres and dismantling others was taken. But since after the IIT- Kanpur study it has given a second thought to our experts and taskforce members on shutting the jumbo covid centres. We are in discussions with covid-19 taskforce members who will be advising or deciding on operating all jumbo covid centres or shut down some of them,” he said. “Meanwhile we are ready to handle another wave of covid-19. Moreover, the 10th genome sequencing report will be revealed in the next two days which clearly shows Omicron is dominant in the city,” Kakani added.
Meanwhile, for the last one week, less than 10 patients are getting admitted to jumbo covid centres and Seven Hills hospital had zero admission on March 2. “We had started the dismantling of the centres but were asked to keep it on standby. All patients in Dahisar jumbo covid centres are discharged and there are hardly any asymptomatic cases on the out-patient department (OPD) basis,” said a doctor.
A senior health officer from the state Covid-19 task force said there is no need to panic as there have been many predictions and mathematical research and none of them is accurate. The only thing that helped to control covid cases was the efforts taken by all the agencies and following of covid-19 behaviour. But the study came on time when cases have drastically dropped and there has been much relaxation given by the state government due to which a decision on the dismantling of jumbo covid centres can be kept on hold.
“Rather than shutting them down completely, keeping them on the buffer will help us to take immediate steps in case the cases increase. Moreover, the jumbo covid care centres have been useful for the cases from urban slum areas of Mumbai where isolation was not possible due to small houses. The jumbo covid care centres will be working on standby as a buffer if we see any sudden spike in the cases,” he said.
