Mumbai recorded 547 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the tally to 8,359. The city also recorded the highest number of deaths (27) in a single day, pushing the death toll to 322. The financial capital is a hotspot contributing nearly 68% cases and 62% deaths to the State tally. The fatality rate in the city currently stands at 3.8%.
The deaths recorded on Saturday included 20 men and seven women. Civic officials said 20 deceased had co-morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension and asthma. While 15 deceased were in the age group of 40 to 60 years, 12 were above the age of 60.
“We have reported a few deaths in the younger age ground below 40. However, we have found that a majority in the younger age group also had some underlying conditions,” said Dr. Daksha Shah, deputy executive health officer, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The city’s last highest single-day death toll was 26, recorded on April 29. The number of deaths has doubled in a span of 10 days.
Increasing hospital beds
The BMC has now concentrated its efforts on house to house surveillance to detect cases from the community as early as possible. While it had earlier relied on projections that 10% of total positive patients will require hospitals beds, the actual requirement is seen at 30% to 40%.
Manisha Mhaiskar, principal secretary on special deputation to the BMC, said patients find a hospital bed more reassuring. “Factoring this, hospital beds augmentation is being reassessed,” Ms. Mhasikar said, adding that Nair hospital will have 935 beds ready by next week and 388 have already been commissioned. Similar measures were on at other hospitals.
On the other hand, the civic body will also start allowing asymptomatic patients without any co-morbid conditions to remain in home isolation. “This will be decided on a case to case basis depending on if the patient has a separate room and there is enough space for the family to maintain distancing. Such patients will be allowed to follow up with their own physicians,” Dr. Shah said, adding that the Centre has drawn out detailed guidelines for home quarantining patients, which will have to be followed stringently.
On Saturday, 137 patients went home after recovery from various city hospitals. In all, 1,704 patients have recovered in Mumbai so far.
