Mumbai sees 8,082 new COVID cases, 90% of today's cases asymptomatic

MUMBAI: Mumbai reported 8,082 Covid-19 cases on Monday, the highest daily count since April 18, 2021, taking the caseload beyond the 8-lakh mark, while two more patients succumbed to the infection, the city civic body said.

Mumbai also reported 40 new cases of the latest coronavirus variant Omicron, pushing the number of such infections to 368 in the metropolis, according to the Maharashtra government's health department.

With fresh additions, the financial capital's coronavirus tally rose to 8,07,602, while the death toll increased to 16,379, according to a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) bulletin. Though the city has logged just 19 more cases as compared to Sunday, when the daily count was 8,063 and fatalities at zero, Mumbai has witnessed nearly 10-fold rise in Covid-19 infections since last Monday, when the one-day tally was 809.

The financial capital of the county has reported the highest one-day Covid-19 cases since April 18, 2021, when it recorded 8,479 new cases and 53 fatalities during the second wave of the pandemic.

Out of the 8,082 new cases, 7,273 (90 per cent) are asymptomatic and only 574 patients have been admitted to hospitals, while 71 are on oxygen support, according to the bulletin. However, despite a spurt in cases in the last one week, only 3,735 out of 30,565 hospital beds, or 12.2 per cent of the total, are currently occupied in the city, it said.

With the rising cases in the city, the growth rate the infection shot up to 0.50 per cent between December 27, 2021 and January 2, 2022, while the case doubling rate slipped to 138 days, as per the bulletin. The BMC bulletin said 49,283 Covid-19 tests were conducted in Mumbai in the last 24 hours, taking their cumulative number to 1,38,14,933.

With 622 patients discharged from hospitals following recovery during the day, Mumbai's active tally jumped to 37,274 from 29,819 within 24 hours, it said. The cumulative number of recovered patients in Mumbai stood at 7,51,358, while the city has a coronavirus recovery rate of 93 per cent, the bulletin said.

It said the number of sealed buildings also showed an exponential growth as their count has surged to 318, though the tally of containment zones in slums and 'chawls' (old row tenements) stood lower at 11.

Last year, Mumbai had reported the highest daily cases at 11,163 on April 4 and most deaths at 90 on May 1 during the second wave of the pandemic.