BMC chief rules out further lockdown in Mumbai, says situation on the verge of coming under control

Mumbai: While several places in Maharashtra are again heading for a lockdown, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal has said Mumbai does not need the lockdown as the situation here is under control.

Speaking to the media, the BMC chief said that the recovery rate in the city has gone up to 70 per cent, adding that the civic body will try to bring down the cases to the range of 500 and 1,000 per day in the next few days. He reiterated that the pandemic is on the verge of coming under control as Mumbai’s R (rate of people getting infected by a COVID-19 patient) is 1.1.

Chahal said that 7,000 out of the total beds available for coronavirus patients in Mumbai are vacant, adding that there are also 250 vacancies in the intensive care unit.

While Mumbai has come to be known as the biggest hotspot for coronavirus, the civic body has also taken several steps like increasing the number of swab tests and massively scaling up contact tracing under the Chase the Virus campaign. The BMC has also increased the number of hospital beds, taking into account the growing number of patients after increasing the number of tests.