The Worli and Dharavi areas of Mumbai, which are hotspots for the novel coronavirus, are now witnessing a continuous decline in the number of daily cases, and an increase in the doubling rate, the Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday.
The Worli suburb has so far reported an average of 35 to 40 cases per day in June, compared with 60 in May. In Dharavi, the average new cases have reduced from 47 in May to 27 in June. The doubling rate of cases has risen to 44 days for Worli and 38 days for Dharavi.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of G North Ward, which includes Dharavi, told the Hindustan Times: “We have separated suspected patients from the community on a timely basis, conducted screenings and aggressive testing and organised fever camps. We have identified people who were using common toilets and home quarantined them also.”
Dharavi has 1,924 cases of Covid-19 and 71 deaths. However, on Monday it reported only 12 new cases. No deaths have been reported in the last nine days, according to News18. Dighavkar said that of the 1,924 cases, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has already placed around 70% in quarantine.
“I don’t think that there will be a rise in the numbers after this as we are continuously screening more and more people and ensuring isolation of most of the people,” Dighavkar said. “We will keep doing that until there are zero cases in Dharavi.”
In G South Ward, which includes Worli, 42 new cases were reported on Monday. The total number of cases in the ward is now 2,390, but the latest figures indicate a decline in the growth rate. “Densely-populated slums such as Jijamata Nagar and Worli-Koliwada had the maximum cases being reported every day, but as of today, these slums have nil or minimal cases,” Sharad Ughade, assistant municipal commissioner of G South ward, said. “We focused not only on recovery but also on prevention.”
However, Dr Om Srivastav, one of the doctors who are a part of the task force appointed by the state to reduce mortality rate due to Covid-19, said authorities must wait two to three weeks to ascertain a definite trend. “If residents continue to follow what they have been doing in the past eight weeks, such as wearing masks, sanitising hands and following social distancing norms, then we should be able to manage to flatten the curve,” he said.
Mumbai is by far the worst-affected city in India. The city had 49,863 cases and 1,700 deaths as of Monday evening, according to data released by its municipal corporation.
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