Critical Covid-19 patients’ count goes over 580 in Mumbai

The BMC continues to randomly test passengers coming into the city, such as here at Dadar station on Thursday. Pic/Ashish Raje

The number of daily cases has dropped drastically but the number of critical COVID-19 patients has increased to 584. These patients are mostly senior citizens with comorbidities. Officials, however, say the critical people are hospitalised for longer so the number appears to be high.

From January 1 to 20, 124 people died in the city due to COVID-19. The active cases rose to 1.17 lakh on January 10, after the city recorded over 20,000 daily cases for four consecutive days. Now active cases have come down to 30,000 but the number of hospitalisations hasn't dropped. On January 10, there were 7,408 COVID patients and out of these, 3,129 were on oxygen beds and 471 were critical. Currently, 4,571 people are under treatment in various hospitals, 2,041 of them are on oxygen beds and critical patients have increased to 584.

A passenger is tested at Dadar station on Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje

In December the death toll was at an all-time low of 40. In November 89 people had died. "Even now the majority of cases are from the vulnerable group of seniors. At least 90 per cent of patients are discharged after 3 to 4 days of hospital treatment but critical patients require more days and that's why the number seems to have grown," said a BMC official.

"As all samples of positive patients are not sent for genome sequencing, we cannot say exactly how many are Omicron and how many are Delta infections," the official added. During the second wave, which peaked in April 2021, 1,940 people died in the city as per the official record.