Navi Mumbai crosses 1 lakh Covid-19 cases in 471 days

A protest in Navi Mumbai over the naming of the international airport saw huge crowds on Saturday. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

Navi Mumbai crossed the one lakh Covid-19 positive case mark on June 25. It took 471 days from the beginning of the pandemic to reach this mark. Of these patients, 96,957 have recovered. around 1,728 have succumbed to the virus, while 1,424 are still under treatment. Though the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation has managed the first and second wave efficiently, in the wake of Delta+ variant, the authorities are worried about the third wave, as vaccination has lost its pace. This has happened due to low supply, and because citizens have developed a false sense of confidence due to the significant fall in daily cases after the second wave.

The first Covid case here was reported in March 11, 2020, but daily cases were low in the first wave. The city took 95 days to reach the 10,000 mark in terms of positive patients. Due to total lockdown from March 2020 to July 2020, daily cases were low. But, the situation changed as unlocking started. Though the first wave didn't trouble the city much, in the second wave, 30,000 cases were reported in just 33 days from March 23 to April 27, 2021, keeping the civic administration on its toes.

"Those 90 days of the second wave were most challenging. There has been a shortage of beds, especially ICU beds across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), and Navi Mumbai was no exception. The wave claimed around 500 deaths in this time," said a NMMC official. "But we must consider the work done by NMMC officials who stood up to the challenge and made sure no patient died due to lack of medical care," he added.

The corporation, through its 13 Covid centres, has emphasised on admitting all the Covid patients belonging to 50+ age group. Currently the recovery rate of Navi Mumbai is 96.97 per cent, with fatality around 1.4 per cent. "Though the second wave has receded, we are gearing up for the third wave now; the government of Maharashtra has asked all the civic corporations to be aware of the highly infectious Delta+ variant. We are upgrading our facilities so that there will be no want of beds," said another official from NMMC. "We don't want to spread panic, but we don't think we can avoid the fresh wave. Citizens must now up their guard," he added.