Mumbai: City on road to being Covid-free

Mumbai is close to becoming a Covidfree megacity with nine big wards reporting zero cases for a week while others seeing 16 infections According to BMCrsquos report heavily populated suburbs like Borivli Kurla Chembur and Goregaon did not see even a single case from December 410 Health officials say Covid19 is now in an endemic stageSince the outbreak of novel Coronavirus in March 2020 Mumbai has confirmed 1154997 infections and 19744 fatalities from the respiratory diseaseldquoThere was a day when the city reported more than 20000 cases in a day but now both the spread and intensity have gone so we are seeing cases in single digit The good news is that many civic wards are getting free of Covid19rdquo said an officialA man being tested for Covid19 in Malad File picSatej ShindeAccording to the BMCs records of the total 24 wards nine have not reported a single new case from December 410 These are Kurla L ward Kandivli RSouth ward Byculla E ward Colaba A ward Chembur East MEast ward Borivli RCentral ward Marine Lines C ward Chembur West MWest ward and Goregaon PSouth wardDuring the same period at least six wards reported just one caseAlso read Thane sees 3 new Covid19 cases active tally at 36According to the experts Covid19 has now entered an endemic stage which needs an official confirmation from the World Health OrganisationrdquoWe are detecting 2030 cases after doing around 2000 tests a dayrdquo said an official of the BMCrsquos health department requesting anonymityBMCrsquos Joint Executive Health Officer Dr Daksha Shah said ldquoThe transmission of the virus has reduced and people are also vaccinated This might be why the number of cases is going down Moreover after multiple mutations the seriousness of the disease has also gone downrdquoDr Kedar Toraskar critical care specialist and a member of the state Covid Task Force said ldquoWe canrsquot say the pandemic is over The number of tests done daily has gone down Nowadays hardly any hospital is conducting as many tests as they did before Hence it is difficult to say that the pandemic is over Since January we are seeing Omicron and its subvariants dominating the infections and these havenrsquot been replaced by any new variant However the virus is behaving like the flu and people are recovering quickly and without any complications The recent deaths have been due to other health issues along with Covid19rdquoDr Gautam Bhansali coordinator of a private Covid19 hospital and physician at Bombay Hospital said ldquoThe pandemic is not over yet Covid19 is in the endemic stage though it has not been declared officially yet The virus is behaving like the flu There is no severity and many civic wards are seeing not a single case It is a good sign and we can hope for the number to further go downrdquo08No of cases Bandra West reported from December 4 to 1001No of cases Dadar reported from December 4 to 10Cases in wards from December 4 to 10Wards CasesMatunga F North 6Grant Road D 6Khar H East 5Ghatkopar N 4Andheri West K West 4Bandra H West 3Mulund T 3Elphinstone G South 2Malad P North 2Sandhurst Road B 1Parel F South 1Dahisar R North 1Dadar G North 1Bhandup S 1Andheri East KEast 1