Mumbai sees 46 per cent drop in Covid-19 deaths

Antigen tests at LTT railway station. Pic/Sayed Sameer Abedi

Mumbai has witnessed a 46 per cent drop in deaths due to Covid in the last 30 days from the number of casualties the month before, revealed data from the civic health department. As per the BMC, the city has witnessed 124 Covid-19 deaths between October 10 to November 9, which further dropped to 67 between November 10 to December 9. BMC health officials say this is because of the strict measures and vaccination coverage.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner (BMC), said, "One of the reasons for the reduced number of Covid-19 deaths is implementation of Mission Save Lives by us in the city. Our main focus has been to reduce the daily numbers and bring the Covid-19 deaths to single digit." The mortality rate of Covid-19 in the city is still 2.1 per cent.

"The death rate has come down to 2.1 per cent and daily Covid fatality rate has also dropped below 1 per cent. For the last one month we have been reporting Covid
deaths in the single digit and most of the time it is below five," said Kakani. The city witnessed zero deaths for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic on October 17. In the last three days, the city has been reporting one death every day.

According to health experts, the period between March to November, 2020, is considered the first wave. Thereafter, the city witnessed a drop in cases and deaths. It was at the end of February 2021 when cases went up and the onset of the second wave began, as per the experts. "We had our system streamlined and had protocols of bed allocation in place. Through our war rooms, we allocated beds. We had massive jumbo facilities with ample oxygen storage that helped during the second wave when the number of cases were much higher," said Kakani.