BMC official: COVID-19 situation in Mumbai city "is in control"

The COVID-19 situation in Mumbai city "is in control" as the number of covid cases being reported on a daily basis is 1,500, a senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said.

At least 6,000 to 7,000 tests are being conducted on a daily basis and people are following the safety rules, said additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani.

The civic body in the city is focussed slum areas by tracing high risk contacts and sending them to quarantine centres, and if they tested positive, they were kept at isolation facilities, he said.

Kakani said BMC will now focus on residential buildings and housing societies for raising awareness about hygiene, cleanliness, social distancing, need to wear masks and sanitisation of common areas like lifts, staircases, lobbies and toilets.

Guidelines will soon be issued for housing societies to ensure they do not allow outsiders without masks, he said.

There should be arrangements for thermal screening and hand sanitisers at the entrance of housing societies and people should be alert even at home, he said, adding that the BMC also has the task of focusing on monsoon-related ailments.

On Tuesday, Mumbai's COVID-19 tally rose to 1,03,262 with the addition of 995 new cases, while the death toll increased to 5,814 after 62 more patients succumbed to the infection, according to the BMC.