MUMBAI: The BMC is bracing itself for 10,000 Covid-19 cases in a day and keeping medical infrastructure ready for it. Municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said case numbers were rising but there was no cause for panic. The BMC decided to raise Covid-19 beds from 13,773 on Thursday — 5,140 of these were vacant — to 21,000 in 15 days. This would be done by operationalising the pool of Covid beds in various hospitals.

Assuming the city begins to add 10,000 cases per day with 15% of these symptomatic and in need of a hospital bed, then cosidering a 14-day cycle of bed occupancy, the number of beds required to handle the situation for a period six to eight weeks would be 21,000. Chahal said the BMC was in total control of the pandemic situation. “The BMC is confident of controlling the pandemic in due course of time,” he said. He said the BMC had resolved to take testing beyond 60,000 in the coming weeks. He said the BMC had completed 10 lakh vaccinations and aimed to increase the rate to a lakh per day.

Chahal said people should follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and help the BMC. Chahal said that on Tuesday 40,400 tests were conducted and 5,458 of these showed up positive, a 13.5% positivity rate. He said that 83% were asymptomatic positive and that there were 10 deaths. On Wednesday, the BMC conducted 47,000 tests and the number of new cases remained over 5,000. The positivity rate was 12% and the percentage of asymptomatic positives, 84%. Six people died.

In the second Covid-19 surge from February 10, there have been 200 deaths till Wednesday, an average of 4.6 deaths per day and a mortality rate of 0.3%. “Considering the adequate health infrastructure and extremely low mortality rate, there is absolutely no cause for panic or worry in Mumbai,” Chahal said.

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