Mumbai: Seniors form 87 per cent of Covid-19 deaths this year

A COVID victim’s body being taken for cremation, in Kandivli last year. File pic

Since the beginning of the new year, the city lost 304 citizens to COVID, with about 87 per cent of them being above 60 years old.

BMC officials said most of the deceased had comorbidities like diabetes and high blood pressure, but it's not clear if they succumbed to Delta or Omicron variant as the civic body didn't send each of the samples for genome sequencing.

Like the earlier two waves, elderly citizens with comorbidities bore the maximum brunt of infectious Coronavirus during the third wave, which has now begun receding in Mumbai.

There were 2,061 active cases in the city on December 20 and the number has now come down to 2,925, after touching 1.17 lakh on January 9.

Between December 21 and February 11, Mumbai registered 2,86,431 COVID cases. Genomic tests showed that over 80 per cent of these infections were due to the Omicron strain of the Coronavirus.

Four victims in 10-19 age group

In the last one and half months, the daily number of COVID deaths increased from single-digit to double-digit. Of the 304 deaths these days, 263 were above the age of 60 years, as per BMC data. While one victim was aged below 9 years, four deaths were reported in the 10-19 age group.

"About 90 per cent of the deceased above 60 had comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease etc. But we cannot contribute all the deaths to Omicron or Delta as each and every sample wasn't sent to genome sequencing report," said an official from the BMC.