Mumbai on Monday reported 96 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest single-day rise after April 17, 2020, and one fatality due to coronavirus infection, the city civic body said. Generally, the city reports fewer cases on Mondays due to less number of tests conducted on Sundays.
With the addition of fresh cases, the tally of infections in Mumbai rose to 10,55,657 and the COVID-19 death toll to 16,476, a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) bulletin said.
On the other hand, the Bombay High Court asked the Maharashtra government to withdraw the order restricting train travel to those who are fully vaccinated.
The court’s direction came in light of petitions filed by Feroze Mithiborwala and Yohan Tengra to cancel two state SOPs in August 2021 as “discriminatory against those not vaccinated”.
“Come back and tell us tomorrow (Tuesday),” said Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Makarand Karnik.
During the hearing, the high court bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta had noted that then chief secretary, Sitaram Kunte, had not consulted other members or the task force before issuing the SOPs, The Times of India reported.
“Where was the urgency that Kunte had to take the decision by himself?” asked CJ Datta.
The judges told senior advocate Anil Anturkar to “sit with them once again or ask your government to withdraw the decision.” To this, Anturkar said that he will speak to the new chief secretary, Debashish Chakraborty, “to hold a meeting in 2-3 days to take stock and if it is possible to withdraw the order”.
“We can show you the order (passed by Kunte) has no basis in law. The chief secretary does not run the state. He is only head of the administrative executive. In the south it is increasing. In the east it is there. Maharashtra has handled it (pandemic) beautifully. Why do you want to earn a bad name? Be sensible,” said the CJ.
A total of 16,476 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, taking the count of samples tested so far in Mumbai to 1,60,45,437.
On Sunday, the city had logged 167 coronavirus cases and zero fatalities. Around 82 per cent or 79 of fresh 96 patients are asymptomatic, it said.
The case positivity rate of Mumbai now stands at 0.58 per cent. Presently, Mumbai has 1,415 active COVID-19 cases. In the last 24 hours, only 17 patients were hospitalised for COVID-19 and only four of them are on oxygen support. Only 807 of the total 36,308 hospital beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients in the city, the bulletin said.
With 188 more patients being discharged from hospitals, the number of recoveries in Mumbai went up to 10,34,681. Mumbai’s case recovery rate now stands at 98 per cent, while the rate of doubling of cases has crossed 3,000 days to 3,313 days. The overall growth rate of COVID-19 cases for the period between February 14 to February 20 stood at 0.02 per cent, the bulletin said. Mumbai has been free of sealed buildings and containment zones for more than a week. Mumbai had reported the highest 20,971 cases on January 7 this year during the third wave, which according to municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal started on December 21, 2021.
Last year, Mumbai had reported the highest 11,163 cases on April 4. The city had recorded the highest 90 fatalities on May 1, 2021.
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