Coronavirus deaths in Mumbai: Over 5,000 Covid-19 deaths in the maximum city

The BMC claimed that until now it has conducted over 3.64 lakh tests.

The coronavirus death toll in Mumbai crossed the 5,000-mark on Wednesday with 62 new fatalities, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

While the death toll reached 5,061, the tally of coronavirus cases in the country’s financial capital rose to 87,513 with 1,381 new patients found since Tuesday evening.

The number of recovered COVID-19 patients rose to 59,238 with 1,101 persons discharged from hospitals during the day, the BMC said.

The city has now 23,214 active cases. 897 new suspected patients were admitted since previous evening.

The recovery rate in the city has increased to 68 per cent while the overall growth rate of COVID-19 cases between July 1 to 7 improved to 1.52 per cent and the average doubling rate of cases was 45 days, informed the BMC.

The civic body has revised testing guidelines, allowing patients with symptoms to undergo COVID-19 tests without a doctor’s prescription.

The BMC claimed that until now it has conducted over 3.64 lakh tests.

However, former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis hit out at the BMC, saying it was not testing enough.

“It was relieving to see yesterdays COVID numbers in Mumbai coming down to 806 until I realised that only 3,300 samples were tested. @OfficeofUT (chief minister Uddhav Thackeray) are we playing with lives of Mumbaikars? On a given day our patients are 806 & 64 deaths which takes the death rate to around 8 per cent & infection rate 25 per cent,” he tweeted.

The civic body, however, claimed that it has increased the COVID-19 testing to 5,500 tests per day from earlier 4,000 tests per day since the introduction of rapid antigen testing, result of which can be available within half an hour.

It carried out 5,483 tests on July 8, it added.

According to the BMC, the number of tests conducted crossed one lakh on May 6, two lakh on June 1 and three lakh on June 24.