Covid-19 in India: Omicron wave flattening in Mumbai, says health expert

With the steady fall in the number of patients in Mumbai, many believe that the Covid-Omicron wave might have started flattening in the metropolis.

“The Omicron wave is flattening for sure in Mumbai,” Dr Shashank Joshi, who is part of the Maharashtra government’s Covid task force, told the media on Wednesday.

Kishori Pednekar, the city’s mayor, said both Covid-19 and Omicron cases were slowing down in Mumbai. According to her, 94 per cent of the people who died because of Covid-19 since February were unvaccinated ones.

Maharashtra’s surveillance officer, Dr Pradeep Awate, said the peak appears to be over. “As seen in South Africa, the positivity rate surged to 32-34 per cent, and then suddenly dropped,” he said. “A virus also has its limits. So, these latest hits show that the peak is over but nothing concrete can be said until we have the data of the next one week.”

Iqbal Chahal, the city’s municipal commissioner, said Mumbai’s positivity rate fell from 30 per cent to 20 per cent over the past two days. “Daily cases are down from 20,700 to 11,647 in the last four days,” he pointed out.

The state’s health minister Rajesh Tope said only three per cent of patients need an ICU bed or oxygen supply.

“The state has adequate infrastructure and the occupancy is low at present,” he said. Of the 38,000 ICU beds in Maharashtra, just 1,711 were occupied. And of the 134,000 oxygen beds, just 5,400 had been taken up. The minister feels that the end of the third peak may be seen over the next fortnight.

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Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner, BMC, told the media that it would be difficult to confirm the plateauing of the third wave at this stage, especially considering the sporadic behaviour of the variant. He, however, said there was stability in the number of cases and the third wave could be declining. “We have to wait till the end of this week to confirm,” he added.

• India