Updated: July 8, 2020 2:05:29 am
The Covid-19 death toll in Mumbai crossed the 5,000 mark on Tuesday with 64 deaths recorded in the city. As many as 224 deaths were recorded across Maharashtra — highest in a fortnight. The last highest death toll was on June 23 when the state reported 248 deaths.
While the deaths were high on Tuesday, Mumbai recorded only 785 new Covid-19 cases, lowest since June 30 when 893 cases were recorded.
The total tally has touched 86,509. Across the state, 5,134 new cases were diagnosed, with the total count now at 2.17 lakh.
The BMC started four new Covid care centres in Mumbai on Tuesday. In two centres, it has also reserved space for patients from Mira Bhayander and Thane since the satellite towns have been suffering an infrastructure crunch and a spike in coronavirus cases.
A 1,650-bed facility in Mulund has been started with CIDCO. In Dahisar, 955 beds with 108 intensive care unit beds have been made functional. In Mahalaxmi Racecourse 600 beds and in MMRDA grounds, 112 more ICUs have been installed.
“We plan to increase daily testing, now that more beds have been arranged,” a civic official said. Until now BMC was testing half its capacity with 4,500-5,000 samples each day and detecting 1,200-1,500 new cases. It plans to scale up to 6,500 tests per day. There are 22,996 actively infected Covid-19 cases in the city.
As he discussed plans for phase-wise unlocking, state Health Minister Rajesh Tope said, “From tomorrow, hotels, guesthouses, and lodges will open with 33 per cent capacity. We want to bring normalcy subject to strict social distancing. In standard operating protocol, hotels have to ensure social distancing in reception queues, in parking lot, install pedal-operated sanitiser dispensers.”
Tope said towels must be disinfected, and if a Covid-19 case is found the main reception and common areas must be sanitised. “The key is social distancing. In initial phase, a lot of Covid cases emerged because of restaurants and hotels. That is why now when we unlock strict implementation of 33 per cent occupancy must be followed.”
In Mumbai with heavy rains, civic officers have also intensified fever surveys.
“Teams that were working on Covid-19 contact tracing are also checking for other illnesses like dengue, malaria or leptospirosis symptoms. Till now we have not seen a spike in water-borne diseases,” said Dr Jeetendra Jadhav, medical officer in L ward.
He said the insecticide department, storm water drain and health department are actively working in water-logging prone spots.
Of the 224 Covid-19 deaths, at least 64 were reported from Mumbai. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region accounted 50 per cent of state death toll, with 118 deaths.
Eighteen of 36 districts reported Covid19 deaths on Tuesday. Pune recorded 36, Jalgaon 5, Nashik 9, Solapur 7, Panvel 9, Vasai-Virar 8, Aurangabad 4 deaths.
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Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/mumbai-coronavirus-news-update-toll-crosses-5000-in-mumbai-64-new-deaths-6495041/