Mumbai: '0.25 pc of international passengers tested Covid positive in 3 weeks'

Civic officials test a train commuter for COVID at Dadar station in February 2022. File pic

Covid cases are on the decline in the city, state and globally and it seems unlikely that they may rise hereafter, some health officers have said. In the past three weeks, the city reported only 116 cases, at an average of 5.5 per day, which is lower than the figure from December 1 to 22.

Despite the absence of any restrictions on travel or curbs on New Year celebrations, positive cases among international passengers were below 0.25 per cent in this period.

mid-day reported on December 22 that the variants that are responsible for the spike in cases in the United States, Japan, Brazil and China had been found in India before and the chances of a Covid surge in India were slim as almost all citizens are immune to Omicron variants. Now after three weeks, the trend of cases shows a declining trend and there is a very low possibility of cases rising hereafter.

Commuters exercise caution by donning masks at CSMT. File pic

From December 23 to January 12, Mumbai registered 116 positive cases and zero deaths. Prior to that in December, there were 156 positive cases and two deaths. The average number of daily cases has come down to 5.5 from seven.

Cases have also been declining across the state. As per the state health report, out of 3.36 lakh international passengers, 7,706 were tested with RT-PCR and 19 were positive - a test positivity rate of 0.25 per cent.

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"It has been three weeks and cases are not increasing. On the contrary, a declining trend has been observed in Mumbai as well as Maharashtra despite there being no restrictions on international travel. Hardly 19 of 7,706 passengers have tested positive till now, a very low positivity rate," said Dr Pradip Awate, state surveillance officer for epidemic-prone diseases.

He added that going by the current trend in India and other parts of the world, there is hardly any possibility that the cases may increase in Mumbai or the state.
According to the World Health Organisation, global Covid-19 cases have declined compared to the previous week. The number of newly reported weekly cases
decreased by 27 per cent in South-East Asia. There has been a 76 per cent decline in cases compared to the earlier four weeks in the region.

However, the WHO mentioned that the trends need to be interpreted in light of the reduction in testing and delays in reporting in many countries during the year-end holiday season.

"Cases haven't been increasing and there is a very low possibility that they may increase now. There are two main reasons. Our society has vast coverage of vaccination and many have even got booster doses. Also, almost everyone got infected by Omicron in April 2022, creating immunity against variants," said Dr Santosh Kadam, secretary, Indian Medical Association, Maharashtra.

It was said that an Omicron sub-variant, BF.7, was responsible for the rise in cases in China. Likewise, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are dominating in the US whereas BA.2.75, BA.2 have been found in other countries. But these sub-variants were also detected in India prior to December 2022 and did not create any spurt here. There was a surge due to BA.4 and BA.5 in Europe in July, but in India, the variants did not make an impact.

0.25
Percentage of positive cases among global passengers arriving in city over 3 weeks

7,706
No. of international flyers tested via RT-PCR