Mumbai Maharashtra on Saturday recorded 253 Covid cases, thus breaching the 200-mark for the third day in a row, indicating that the virus continues to be a cause of concern.
On Friday, there were 205 infected people and it reported 233 on Thursday.
Dr Kedar Toraskar, a member of the Covid task force, said that the increase in cases was an expected phenomenon. “Today, people are roaming without masks, attending large gatherings and functions. The omicron variant is still prevailing. In such circumstances, the cases are bound to fluctuate,” said Dr Toraskar.
“However, the best part is that we are hardly seeing any hospitalisation which indicates it is under control. We should take care that it does not reach an alarming level,” he added.
Dr Wiqar Shaikh, professor of medicine, Grant Medical College and Sir JJ Hospital, said it points to the impending fourth wave. “There is a Covid surge across the world and India will not escape this. It was wrong on the part of the government to remove the mask mandate,” said Dr Shaikh. He said that the government needs to enforce Covid-appropriate behaviour across the state without any delay.
The positivity rate recorded was 0.85%. There are currently 1277 active patients across the state of which Mumbai tops with 784 patients followed by Pune and Thane with 262 and 130 active cases respectively
The upward spike in daily positive cases continued on Saturday as Mumbai reported 172 fresh Covid-19 infections taking the overall case tally to 10,59,684. No Covid-19 death was reported on Saturday and the toll tally stood at 19,563.
This is the highest single-day spike since February 20, when the city recorded 167 fresh infections in 24 hours.
Senior officials of BMC said that while the number of positive cases in Mumbai has increased, there is still no reason for concern as of now.
“Even though the daily case figures are increasing we are keeping a close watch on the mortality rate and rate of hospitalisation, both of which are below one per cent. We have kept all our available facilities on standby and are fully ready for any adversity that may come,” said Mangala Gomare, the executive health officer in BMC.
With 8,732 tests carried out in the past 24 hours, the daily Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stood at 1.96 per cent. As of Saturday, there are 784 active cases in the city and the rate of hospitalization is 0.08 per cent. Also, 167 out of all the 172 fresh infections that were reported on Saturday were asymptomatic.