Covid-19: Mumbai’s positivity rate drops to single digit from 28% on April 4

MUMBAI: Gains from the lockdown-like curbs are beginning to show, though only in Mumbai and a couple of other districts.
The city’s daily positivity rate (PR) has dropped 50%— from 20.8% on April 1 to 9.9% on April 30—giving hope that the second wave could be ebbing. Experts said the infection continues to rage in the rest of Maharashtra with Nagpur, Nashik and Thane showing a positivity of more than 30%.
Daily PR, statewide, remains as high as 23%, declining by barely 2% in the last 30 days.
BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal said Mumbai was perhaps the only city in India with such a low PR at present. “Our positivity rate is in single digit now despite carrying out 44,000 tests,” he said.
CM Uddhav Thackeray too endorsed the view that curbs had helped reduce cases.
The city’s daily positivity had dropped under 5% towards the end of January before rising again through February and reaching an average of 20% in March. April began with a 21% PR that rose to a high of 28% on April 4. The same day the government announced restrictions such as night curfews, a ban on gatherings of more than five persons and shutting down of non-essential shops.
The decision proved a turning point—PR slowly began to dip. More curbs on movement followed on April 14 and April 22, including banning non-essential workers from using trains.
A civic official said the drop to single digit has come about after 45 days. The last time it was below 9.94% was on March 13 (9.62%). In comparison, Delhi had a PR of 32.82% on Thursday. Neighbouring Pune city’s positivity too was 26.6%.
Ward officials said one of the reasons for the dip is a drop in number of index cases. Even wards like M west (Chembur) that were first to see the surge are seeing a dip. M west, where cases peaked at 392 on April 5 is now reporting less than 150; K west is down from a peak of 900 to 250-300. South Mumbai’s D ward has fallen from over 400 cases to below 200 cases.
A senior official said Mumbai was the only exception among bigger cities of Maharashtra. “The only reason Maharashtra had a 2% drop in positivity since March 30 when PR was 25% is due to Mumbai’s declining graph,” he said. A near-stagnant graph is a cause for worry and indication that there’s been no slowdown in transmission, said a professor from Government Medical College in Nagpur. He cited Nagpur’s positivity rate that remains stagnant at more than 30% in the last one month.
In fact, at least 18 districts have a PR higher than state average. Eleven (Palghar, Buldhana, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Osmanabad, Hingoli, Nagpur, Gadchiroli, Thane, Satara and Parbhani) have positivity of more than 30%. Palghar and Gadchiroli continue to see a jump in PRs. On the lower end, Dhule and Jalgaon have a PR of less than 10%, said Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer.
In Gadchiroli, particularly, positivity has jumped from 7.3% early in April to 35% between April 18-24. Dr Anil Rudey, civil surgeon of Gadchiroli, said the district has been conducting 500 tests daily of which 70% are using antigen and 30% using RT-PCR. A manpower and infrastructure shortage forced them to rely heavily on antigen, he said. The district has added a second RT-PCR machine and hired a microbiologist to boost testing. So far, Gadchiroli has tested over 2lakh people.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said new cases of Covid-19 have stabilised to some extent due to strict implementation of restrictions. “If we had not imposed strict restrictions, the number of active cases would have crossed 9 to 10 lakh as per the projection…we managed to control it to 6-6.5 lakh due to restrictions and cooperation from the people of Maharashtra,” said the CM.
Giridhar Babu, head of Lifecourse Epidemiology at Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), said a drop in positivity rate was good news for Mumbai and a relief for an exhausted healthcare system. “Wherever restrictions have been put in place and they are effectively implemented, you will start seeing results in 7-14 days. Mumbai’s decline in positivity could mean restrictions are working,” he said. Babu reiterated the WHO recommendation of opening up only after positivity has dropped to 5%.