Vaccine in Mumbai, but COVID-19 not going away just yet

A civic worker takes a swab sample of a passenger at Dadar station on Thursday. Pic/Ashish Raje

Vaccines may have entered the scene, but the novel Coronavirus is not exiting in a hurry, if one goes by statistics. Despite the BMC flattening the curve over the past four months, active infections in the city have remained nearly 7,500 since the past month.

Amid much excitement ahead of vaccine delivery kicking off on Saturday, experts say it will take months to inoculate a big chunk of the population. Considering that no vaccine offers 100 per cent protection, they advise caution since a second wave could be more damaging.

At the peak of the pandemic in September, Mumbai recorded about 2,000 cases a day. The numbers have come down from 500 to 700 over the last two months. But they have remained stagnant. Active cases for the city and state too have stuck to the same path - as on Thursday, Mumbai had 7,525 infections, while the figure for the state was close to 52,000.

"The cases have decreased sharply, even the deaths are reduced. But as per the trend, it will take a long time for the cases to decrease further. The pandemic is very much here. Many people have stopped taking care of themselves as if the pandemic is over," said Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of the state's COVID Task Force. He added, "Given the current circumstances, if a second wave comes then it will be much more threatening."

In the first phase of vaccination, nearly 1.3 lakh healthcare personnel in Mumbai will be immunised. The second phase will cover 2 lakh frontline workers, including those managing solid waste and the police. About 30 lakh senior citizens will be inoculated in the third phase. "These phases will take around 6 months to a year as per the availability of vaccines. So it will take that much time for common people to get vaccinated," said an officer with the BMC.

At present in Mumbai, the test positivity rate, detection of infections per 100 tests, is below 4 per cent. Between December 14 and January 13, the city saw 17,065 positive cases from 4.33 lakh samples. Mortality dropped to 354 in December against over an average 1,300 deaths a month before.

3.9%
Current test positivity rate in city