As Maharashtra battles, a surge in Coronavirus cases, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Tuesday, February 23, in an interview said that a chunk on cases could be attributed to public movement after local trains resumed services for the general public.
IS Chahal said, “I had earlier mentioned that it would take us three weeks to understand if the trains have caused any rise in cases. Now we are exactly three weeks away from February 1 and some cases may have been attributed to the huge movement in trains in COVID times.”
He also stated that the civic body has been preparing itself for the worst even if he may be wrong. “We have already taken a meeting with major private and government hospitals and are activating all our Covid case centres and jumbo field hospitals,” he said.
Meanwhile, both the Central and Western Railways claim that they have ensured passengers follow COVID-19 protocols while travelling in local trains. For now, around 95 per cent of local services have resumed operations of both the western and central line that are used by almost 22 lakh commuters.
Moreover, the BMC has tightened the rules to control the number of patients and is taking strict action and penalties from those not wearing masks.
The BMC data shows that the resumption of the local train service is seen as one of the reasons behind the spike in numbers in Mumbai. Till February 1, the daily positive cases were under 400, but by the end of the first week, the number surpassed the 500-mark.
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