Mumbai: High rises report more COVID-19 cases than slums

According to reports, as coronavirus cases are rising in Mumbai, the number of sealed buildings and floors have increased.

This indicates that COVID-19 cases are more in middle-class localities than slums and chawls which mostly house the working-class population of the city. As per a report in Hindustan Times, in the past two weeks, Mumbai’s civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) stated that the number of sealed buildings has doubled and sealed floors increased by around 43 per cent. 

Meanwhile, there has been no increase in containment zones in the past two weeks. According to the protocol shared by the civic body, a chawl or a slum is declared as a containment zone when there are five or more COVID-19 cases in the particular chawl or slum and in the case of high-rises, a building is sealed when five or more cases are reported from a particular building. However, in the case of one to four cases, only that particular floor of the building is sealed.

On the other hand, earlier on August 22, 22 buildings and 1,089 floors were sealed. This number went up to 50 on September 8 in the case of sealed buildings and 1,564 in the case of sealed floors. Andheri, Vile Parle, Khar, Santacruz, Bandra, Malabar Hill, Grant Road are among areas in the city with the highest of five or more sealed buildings.

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