Amid rise in coronavirus cases in Mumbai, BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Thursday said that there is no second wave of COVID-19 in the city and the infections are rising due to increased testing.
While speaking at an event organised by industry lobby CII, Iqbal Singh Chahal said: "I would like to reassure that there is absolutely no second wave at all. We have to understand that we have increased the number of testing in September. Mumbai is now witnessing over 15,000 tests a day against the earlier 7,000."
The civic body took a conscious call of more than doubling the testing and go for a "stimulated spike" from September 1 because it is confident that its health infrastructure can take care of new patients, Chahal said. Earlier, there used to be 1,100 positive patients among 7,000 tests carried out per day, which has now gone up to around 2,000 positive patients with the testing more than doubling, he said.
Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 2,163 new COVID- 19 cases on Thursday, taking its tally to 1,92,301, while the death toll rose to 8,655 with 54 fresh fatalities. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the number of recoveries increased to 1,55,638 with 1,550 more patients getting discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours.
According to the BMC, currently the city has 27,618 active COVID-19 cases. The civic body has done 10.45 lakh COVID-19 tests so far in Mumbai, it said. The BMC said the city has an average growth rate of 1. 14 per cent, while the average doubling rate of COVID-19 cases is 61 days.
