Mumbai: Keep all beds ready, BMC tells 5 civic jumbo hosps

Mumbai: BMC’s additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani on Sunday instructed five civic jumbo hospitals in the city to activate all their beds. Of the patients testing positive, around 5% require admission, he said, adding: “Over 8,000 beds are available, but we are still activating all jumbo beds.” Mumbai currently has more than 451 critical Covid patients.

Maharashtra’s contribution to country’s daily caseload crossed 62%.

A state official pointed out that while Maharashtra may be reporting as many cases as October, deaths are not comparable. On October 1, for instance, the state had reported 394 deaths compared to 50 fatalities on Sunday. Of the 50 deaths, 26 had occurred in the last 48 hours and rest were from previous weeks.

The highest number of deaths was recorded from Mumbai circle with the BMC contributing to seven fatalities. Of the seven deaths in the city, five had comorbidities, but all seven were above 60 years of age. Maharashtra’s total Covid toll rose to 52,861, while Mumbai’s reached 11,535.

Dr Rajesh Dere, dean of the BMC jumbo facility in Bandra, said that the bed occupancy has started to go up. “Even ICU numbers are rising, but deaths are not high,” he added.

On Saturday, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had held a meeting in which he directed hotels, restaurants, malls and places witnessing heavy footfall to follow Covid-appropriate procedures and not force the state to declare a strict lockdown. The state has added over 1.6 lakh cases, while Mumbai has recorded over 18,000 cases since the beginning of March.
Dr Pradeep Awate, state’s surveillance officer, said that non-adherence to home isolation norms is a key reason why the infection was spreading. In Mumbai, a ward-level health volunteer concurred that even people who have Covid positive patients at home are stepping into the common areas of their housing societies like gym, swimming pool and lobby. Currently, 5,83,713 people are in home quarantine and 5,493 in institutional quarantine in Maharashtra.

On Sunday, Mumbai circle registered the highest cases (3,676), while Pune region saw the highest deaths (16). Pune region recorded 3,609 new cases, followed by Nagpur region that reported 2,862 new cases and 12 deaths, of which six were from Wardha alone. From Mumbai metropolitan region, for the third consecutive day, Kalyan-Dombivli reported over 400 Covid cases. On Sunday, 404 new cases and three deaths took the tally to 66,957 and 1,214, repectively. The number of active patients crossed 3,040. Of the 404 new patients, 133 were from Dombivli (E) and 127 from Kalyan (W).

(Inputs by Pradeep Gupta)