Mumbai, like the rest of the country, is on its forty-third day of lockdown. The city has reported a positivity rate of about 15 per cent when the national average has been 3 per cent. This has perturbed ministers and citizens living in the city as the coronavirus cases continue to grow in the country. According to media sources, the situation is extremely worrying as nationally for about 12,76,781 tests, there are usually 50,000 cases. This gives us a positivity rate of 3 per cent. Mumbai, on the other hand, has about 11,000 cases against 73,000 tests. This gives a positivity rate of about 15 per cent. This, in turn, is exceedingly high.
Doctor Harsh Vardhan, the Health Minister of India expressed concern over the status of Maharashtra and Gujrat, given that their fatality rates are high. He further stated that the states must focus on early surveillance and contact tracing. Although the official position by the government still remains that there is no community transmission in the country. He also stressed on proper interventions, screening, and testing for influenza-like illness along with the implementation of a proper containment strategy.
Mumbai is one of the densely populated cities in the country. It has been among the earliest coronavirus hotspots and has been a primary contributor to Maharashtra’s tally of 15,525 cases and 617 deaths. There have especially been concerns about the crowded living conditions of the city, namely Dharavi, which is considered to be one of the largest slums in Asia.
A senior government functionary recently stated in the media that there has been no community transmission in the country as a whole even though some places are reporting more cases than the others. He also added that citizens are less careful in urban areas than in rural ones. Further, he said that when it comes to mortality, some of the cases were not handled adequately perhaps as a result of them arriving late to the healthcare centres.
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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had earlier submitted a death audit report. According to the report, the average time between the onset of the symptoms in a person and death was 6.4 days in Mumbai whereas the average time between hospital admission and death was 2.4 days. Although in some studies in foreign countries, it has known to be a little over 15 days. This states that the people in Mumbai were arriving late to the hospital, all the while having fewer chances at survival.
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