Growth rate of COVID-19 cases in Mumbai comes down

Mumbai, June 05: With a trend of steady decline in COVID-19 cases in Mumbai, the average daily growth rate of infections has gone down, claimed officials of the city civic body, spearheading the metropolis' response to the pandemic.

According to a top Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official, as per the data till June 2, the average daily growth of COVID-19 cases went down from more than 8 per cent a few days ago to 3.64 per cent.

Till June 2, a total of 41,986 COVID-19 cases and 1,368 deaths were recorded in the city, the worst-hit by the disease in Maharashtra.

According to the BMC, it has conducted over 2.08 lakh tests till June 2, of those only 20.18 per cent people tested positive for the novel coronavirus. "Even the COVID-19 case doubling rate has gone up to 19 days," said the official.

According to BMC's health department data, in the past one month, the maximum number of cases, 1,739, on a single-day, were detected on May 22, while the minimum, 404, was recorded on May 13. Another senior BMC official said that the daily number of cases are seeing a declining trend with the count remaining below 1,500 on most of the days since May 22.

According to the officials, due to aggressive screening, testing and contact tracing of suspected COVID-19 patients, the civic body has been successful in keeping the spread of the pandemic under control.