Mumbai sees massive COVID surge with 2227 new cases; city tally soars to 1,60,744

Witnessing a massive Coronavirus (COVID-19) surge, Mumbai on Wednesday, reported 2227 new cases and 43 new deaths. The city also saw 839 recoveries taking the cured tally to 1,26,745 cases. Mumbai - which now lags behind Pune as the worst affected district - has 1,60,744 cases of which 25,659 cases are active while 7982 have succumbed to the virus.

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Mumbai: 2227 new COVID cases

BMC maintained that 'today's cases will reduce after reconciliation of duplicates & out of Mumbai' and that 239 duplicate cases have been removed from the total tally. Mumbai's recovery rate dropped to 79% now while its growth rise has soared again to 1.10%. BMC reported that 8,56,454 samples have been tested till date with an 18.53% positivity rate.

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Testing rates slashed

With the testing kit production cost falling after Maharashtra eased lockdown norms, the charges for picking test samples from collection sites have been reduced to Rs 1,200 from Rs 1,900 (which was fixed last month) by the state government. Collecting samples from kiosks, COVID-19 care collection centres, hospitals, clinics, quarantine centres of laboratories will now cost Rs 1,600 as against Rs 2,200 earlier. The fees for collecting patient samples from his/her residence, their transport, testing and reporting of samples has been slashed to Rs 2,000 from Rs 2,500, the government said.

The government said the revised charges are inclusive of all taxes. The government took the step after a committee set up by it to decide the rates charged by private laboratories submitted its report. No private laboratory can charge patients beyond these rates, the government clarified.

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Mumbai's COVID crisis

With Maharashtra extending its lockdown, the BMC has increased its containment zones to 555, while over 7207 buildings and chawls have been sealed and are being self-managed by the society. While slums were initially where most cases were found, BMC claims that most cases were now found in housing societies. The recent BMC report shows Borivali as the most affected place with the doubling rate at 43 days, while Govandi is the least affected ward with a doubling rate at 93 days. Overall, Mumbai's doubling rate at 63 days is higher than the national average of 30 days.

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