MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: In the past fortnight, the Covid-19 caseload per day in Delhi and Mumbai would appear to have come down — the figure hovering around 1,500 for both the cities. Delhi has now more than one lakh cumulative cases but the active case count is only a little over 17,000. The Delhi government had earlier predicted that the number of cases was likely to touch 2.25 lakh by July 15.
In Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation claims this is an early sign of the curve starting to flatten. So, is the worst over in the national and financial capitals of India? Health experts in Delhi say the peak has already been attained, and the cases have started declining. They, however, caution that there won’t be a steep fall in the number of new cases, per day which may remain around 1,000 for some more days.
“The curve is definitely going down, but the number of RT-PCR tests is going down too, with the state relying too much on the RAT (Rapid Antigen Tests), which do not always capture the true positive cases. The areas outside the containment zones may continue to contribute to the virus spread,” said Dr PK Tyagi, an expert in community medicine in Delhi.
Here is how the ‘pulse’ of the two cities feels like: Mumbai: BMC deputy commissioner Vijay Balamwar said the key to containing the virus in the Maximum City was in the slum areas. “We have decided to chase the virus by conducting door-to-door screenings as per CM’s direction. We don’t wait for the patients to come to the BMC-run hospitals and health centres.” The civic body is focusing on four Ts – tracing, tracking, testing and treatment. “That has helped us to bring down the Covid-19 cases and deaths in Mumbai,” says Balamwar.
Dharavi -- the largest slum area in Asia with a population of over 1,000,000 in just over 2.25 sq km – gave the first sign of change. “We targeted other slums too, to contain the virus spread. Thus, the target areas in combating Covid-19 are the densely populated pockets, which we found are the key to flattening the curve in Mumbai,” Balamwar said.
The Maharashtra government has roped in local NGOs, social activists and private doctors. Various ministers of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government — Aaditya Thackeray, Aslam Sheikh, Varsha Gaikwad and Nawab Malik — have specific responsibilities. For instance, Malik said he has two zones under his watch. More than 30% of these areas have slums. “Initially, people were reluctant to come for testing. But we convinced them that by doing so, they will be helping themselves and their family members. This resulted in controlling the virus at the source.” A senior civic official said the mass migration of workers led to better management of the virus spread.
The BMC created jumbo quarantine facilities with around 18,000 beds where each bed has either attached oxygen cylinders or ventilators. “One of the best decisions that the BMC took was to encourage people to do testing voluntarily without any prescription. So, most of the people staying in apartments are coming forward for the test. That is helping us to get real-time data and devise the strategy,” said an official. New Delhi: To tackle the rising cases — the number per day was around 4,000 in June — Delhi increased the number of tests and started implementing Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) for mass testing in containment zones along with RT-PCR tests.
The number of containment zones were increased and followed by sero survey conducted by the NCDC and the Delhi government across all its 11 districts and a door-to-door survey initiated by the state government. Dr Jugal Kishore, head of the community medicines department in Safdarjung Hospital, said the priority of the government should be on contact tracing, identifying and isolating the covid19 cases.
“Containment and lockdown are totally different approaches. More healthcare workers should be deployed on the ground and more door-to-door checks, sample collection, contact tracing need to be done. That should be the strategy, however what has been usually happening is restricting movement of residents and shutting down shops. But that’s not the solution. Focus should be on total population,” he added. “Also testing and tracing need to be ramped up beyond containment zones, otherwise the virus carriers will continue to spread the infection further.”