1,002 COVID-19 patients from Ward GS have now fully recovered

Maharashtra cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray took to Twitter to announce that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has successfully recovered 1002 patients in the ward GS who were earlier suffering from the coronavirus and have now come out of it victorious. Ward GS consists of Worli and Prabhadevi. 

The good news: @mybmcWardGS now has 1002 happily recovered persons who fought and won against corona virus.
Let’s spread this spirit of fighting the virus successfully!

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) May 26, 2020

With the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases in Mumbai coupled with the densely populated areas being the worst-hit, the BMC had formulated a new strategy to deal with the pandemic in Mumbai’s slum pockets. The slum pockets in Mumbai make up for more than 70 per cent of cases. Mumbai's slum sprawl Dharavi alone has reported over 1500 cases to date. Under the new strategy, at least 15 close contacts of a COVID-19 positive patient from the slum areas would be tested and quarantined. Earlier it was only five close contacts.

As the country enters the fourth phase of the extended lockdown, the BMC has issued revised protocols for the sealing of buildings. As per the protocol, if a COVID-19 positive case has been found in a building, the entire building will not be sealed. Instead, only the particular floor will be sealed. It further stated that no maids, vendors, or service providers will be allowed entry in any building.

The BMC has also been making efforts to procure beds across the city as cases continue to rise. The BMC had earlier set up a 160-bed quarantine centre at the St Xavier's College. In the past, BMC directed civic officials to acquire at least 100 beds, including 10 in ICUs, of private nursing homes and small hospitals in all 24 wards of Mumbai in the wake of the rising number of COVID-19 cases. The civic body has also set up quarantine facilities at Mehboob Studios in Bandra, JJ School of Applied Arts, the auditorium of DG Ruparel College in Matunga. It had also written to the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) to handover the Wankhede stadium to convert it into a quarantine centre to deal with the number of COVID-19 patients.