With more than 600 cases in seven days, this suburb is city’s COVID-19 hotspot; Mulund is second with 60 cases daily
Citizens were seen not wearing masks properly near Andheri West station. The average daily cases in the suburb have been hovering around 90 in the last week. Pic/Satej Shinde
The city has been reporting around 1,000 cases daily in the last seven days. While many wards in the western and eastern suburbs have been registering close to 50 cases daily, K West—comprising Jogeshwari west, Andheri west and Vile Parle west—has become the new COVID-19 hotspot with almost 100 cases every day.
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There were 6,999 cases reported across the city between February 26 and March 4, out of which bifurcation of 6,457 cases in 24 wards is available. While the cases are spread out across the city, and there weren’t any specific clusters seen, now K West has become the new hotspot with 619 cases, accounting for 10 per cent of the total cases in the city. The average daily cases have been hovering around 90 in the last week. The number of buildings with five or more cases rose from 14 to 28 in the same period. Ten staffers at Radha Krishna Restaurant in Andheri West also tested positive three days ago.
While K West is on the top of the list, the next severely affected ward is T (Mulund) with 428 cases, and an average of 60 daily cases. The neighbouring K East ward—comprising the stretch between Jogeshwari East and Vile Parle East—has reported 401 cases in seven days. All other wards in the city reported less than 400 cases in the last week.
H West (Bandra West, Khar West and Santacruz West) registered the maximum growth rate, 0.45 per cent, in the last week. This is due to the lower number of previous active cases in the ward. H west registered 372 cases in the last seven days, whereas K West, with a 0.41 per cent growth rate, added 619 cases in a week.
Vishwas Mote, assistant commissioner, was unavailable for a comment despite repeated messages and calls. He had told mid-day earlier that there were areas related to the entertainment industry and people were undergoing test regularly, which increases the number of cases.
On the other hand, some wards which witnessed a spike in cases, now seem under control. Prithviraj Chauhan, assistant commissioner of M West ward, which witnessed more cases in the last month said the situation is under control now. “There were more than 50 cases per day, but now the number has reduced to 25 to 30 cases per day. And, 98 per cent of cases are from buildings,” explained Chauhan. There were 255 cases reported in the last week.
Cases registered in K West
Feb 26 - 100
Feb 27 - 93
Feb 28 - 87
Mar 1- 64
Mar 2 - 72
Mar 3 - 96
Mar 4 - 107
Total - 619
How the suburbs fared from Feb 26 to March 4
K West (Andheri West) 619
T (Mulund) 428
K East
(Andheri East ) 401
RS (Kandivli) 400
RC (Borivli) 383