MUMBAI: Although Covid cases in the city dropped for the second consecutive day on Tuesday (349), the weekly graph shows a worrying increase. The case tally in the first seven days of September is 2,918 — a third of the entire tally of 9,048 in August.
The daily toll has been under five on most days, yet the deaths between September 1 and 7 is also a third of the August toll of 78.
In comparison, Maharashtra’s weekly case tally is 28,882, or 18.6% of August’s total of 1.5 lakh cases. The state added under-4,000 cases for the second consecutive day and fatalities have stayed below 100 for six days now. On Tuesday, 3,898 cases and 86 fatalities were reported, taking the total to 64.9 lakh and fatalities to 1,37,897. Mumbai’s case tally rose to 7.5 lakh and fatalities to 16,000 on Tuesday. Active cases in the state and the city reported a decline. The state now has 47,926 active cases, of which 4,165 are in Mumbai.
Doctors and BMC officials insist it is too early to term the case rise as the beginning of the third wave. Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the task force, agreed. “We need to watch the trend for another two weeks before we can say the third wave is here,” he said.
“Cases have increased in the last week, prompting us to be on alert,’’ said BMC additional commissioner Suresh Kakani. “We will have to be cautious at least until October 5, which would be a fortnight after the Ganpati festival ends.”
The BMC is worried about Mumbaikars travelling to neighbouring districts for the festival. The present surge -- from 196 on August 17 to 495 on September 4 –- is being viewed as the result of relaxing restrictions on travel and entertainment.
Health minister Rajesh Tope said the state government will be monitoring any slight surge. He cautioned the public against gathering at crowded places ahead of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. It is not rocket science --- if there is increased crowd gathering, cases will increase. While the cases are low, the state government is trying to vaccinate as many people as it can to ensure that if a third wave was to hit the state, it would not be as severe as the second wave, said Tope.
Oxygen production was still a concern as the work to instal new plants was proving time-consuming. “We have seen it in Kerala that the numbers surged post-festivities. We have experienced a similar surge last year too and so we are appealing to the public to follow all precautions during the festive season,” said Tope.
