The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chief Iqbal Singh Chahal has urged the citizens to come forward and get themselves tested in case they have symptoms related to coronavirus. This comes amid a drop in the number of COVID-19 test in Mumbai.
Chahal said while it has been the BMC’s policy to conduct maximum tests to flush out the novel coronavirus from Mumbai, testing figures have fallen in the last few days, from 50,000 plus to 38,000 plus on Saturday, May 1, and 28,636 on Sunday, May 2.
Prior to this, BMC’s highest single-day testing from March 2020 till February 10, 2021 (when the second wave hit Mumbai) was 24,500. Chahal said immediately thereafter testing was doubled and touched 56,000 tests on a single day in April 2021.
The civic body’s average daily testing in April was nearly 44,000 per day. It has been observed that testing figures have fallen in the past few days, and it is likely to fall further during weekends, claimed Chahal.
BMC’s aggressive testing policy has resulted in a reduction of the positivity rate. This might have reduced the natural demand for home collection of swabs in the last few days. There is a need to increase the testing to 40,000 per day at least, if not more, added Chahal.
According to official data by BMC, Mumbai logged 2,624 new coronavirus cases on Monday, May 3, registering its lowest one-day spike in over five weeks. The city's death count stands at 13,372 with 78 new deaths being reported in 24 hours. Mumbai's total number of infections reached 6,58,621 on the same day.
Mumbai had reported 2,377 new coronavirus cases on March 17. After that, the daily figures spiralled to thousands of cases per day as the more dangerous second wave of the pandemic gripped Maharashtra and the rest of the country.
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