The R Central (RC) ward, which covers Borivali and was once the ward with the highest number COVID-19 of cases, is presently among the wards with a low infection rate. Post-July last year, after the number of pandemic cases started to increase rapidly, the RC ward has been on the top of the chart with the highest infection rate. However, after December, the situation in this ward improved very fast.
Presently, RC ward has an infection rate of 0.16 percent, which is the lowest in the city and the doubling period is around 425 days.
Now that there is another spike in the number of COVID-19 cases other municipal wards which have started to report a high rate of cases from high-rises, have now started taking cues from RC ward to contain the spread.
Senior civic officials of RC ward stated, out of the total cases, only 2 percent cases were reported from the slum areas while the rest of the cases were reported from high-rises.
“Our primary objective was to seal multiple floors in buildings that would report more than five cases, apart from sealing the floors we also made sure that residents were not using the lift as well,” Bhagyashree Kapse, Assistant Municipal Commissioner and in-charge of this ward, told FPJ.
“We have arranged for free testing camps and fever camps in every housing society which had reported a significant number of cases,” she added.
Kapse stated, Borivali being a junction record heavy footfall regularly, also there are 53 marriage halls and 12 lawns in the ward. Considering the recent rise in a number of cases, the civic ward office has become extra vigilant and has already written to the in-charge and curators of the halls and lawns to adhere by the state government's protocols, alongside this the ward officials are monitoring the video footages of these places to keep a track of the guest limit.
“Now that the number of cases has started to increase we have ramped up daily testing as well, on a daily basis more than 1,000 people are being tested in our wards,” Kapse stated.
Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner, had also stated, the model of the wards which had tackled the spread in a successful way is also being implemented in other wards to contain the spread.
