Image Courtesy: Afternoon Voice / Akshay Redij In an encouraging sign the COVID-19 test positivity rate in Mumbai has dropped below 10 per cent municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said on Friday. According to Chahal Mumbais positivity rate was 9.94 per cent on April 29 when 4328 people tested positive for COVID-19 out of 43525 those samples were examined. The test positivity rate (TPR) is defined as the proportion of samples that return positive among the total tested. “Our positivity rate is in single-digit now with nearly 44000 tests. Perhaps Mumbai is the only city in India with a single-digit positivity rate with high testing” Chahal claimed. Highlighting that 85 per cent of the new cases are asymptomatic the IAS officer said the number of vacant beds available in city hospitals increased to 5725 on Friday afternoon indicating a drop in fresh admissions. According to the data provided by Chahal who took charge of the BMC during the pandemic last year Mumbai had a TPR of 20.85 per cent at the beginning of April. The highest positivity rate during the month was 27.94 per cent reported on April 4 when 11573 people had tested positive after 51313 samples were examined. The data suggested that the test positivity rate started slipping below 20 per cent from April 19. Earlier this week Dr Shashank Joshi a member of the Maharashtra governments COVID-19 task force had said Mumbai may have turned the corner in its fight against the pandemic. He had said the turnaround was due to the metropolis tackling the surge in cases during the second wave of the infection with the ”ATM strategy” which is Assess Triage and Transfer and Management.

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