Mumbai records lowest daily rise in 3 months, but still early days

Mumbai: After more than three months, Mumbai finally has something to cheer about, as the city registered only 700 Covid positive cases on Monday, when officials conducted 8,776 tests. While these are still early days, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) seems to have got a grip over the virus since May 23. The daily average of cases from all the 24 administrative wards has been hovering at around 1,200.

BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, in an interview to ET had earlier said that he had hoped to bring down the number of Covid cases to between 500 and 1,000 per day. It’s still too early to say if this trend will continue. However, Mumbai has definitely been on the mend. In May, the doubling rate in city was 10 days. It has now increased to 68 days.

Only four wards in the city — R central-39 days, D ward-41, R South-46, T ward-49 — have a doubling rate of less than 50 days.


These wards are on the periphery of the city’s Western and Eastern suburbs. And the infections are mostly from people who enter the city from places such as Thane, Mira-Road, Vasai-Virar.

However, Mumbai still needs to do more testing. The city has only recently began ramping up testing. Pune, on an average, has been testing more 13,000 tests per day. Mumbai’s testing average still is around 6,000 per day. Unlike Mumbai though, officials are concerned about the rising number of Covid cases in Pune, as the cultural capital of the state has been slow in battling the virus pandemic since March.

State government officials said that unlike Mumbai, which has seen less number of cases since May, Pune has consistently been in the red. Currently, Pune’s positivity rate stands at 23-25%, while the same for Mumbai is at around 22%. And Pune’s fatality rate is at 2.17%.