Mumbai Reports 5,888 Covid Cases In 24 Hours, 3-Week Low In Daily Cases

Mumbai reported 5,888 new Covid cases on Saturday evening - a three-week low and a significant drop from the 7,221 it reported on Friday, the 7,410 on Thursday and the 7,684 on Wednesday.

This is the lowest daily addition to its caseload since March 31, when 5,394 new cases were detected, and it is the first time since April 12 that the number of new daily cases is below the 7,000-mark.

The number of deaths linked to the virus, however, remained roughly the same over the past three days - 71 on Saturday, 72 on Friday and 75 on Thursday.

The city - once the worst-affected in the country - conducted nearly 40,000 Covid tests over a 24-hour period ending this evening. On Friday approximately 42,000 tests were conducted.

The daily positivity rate has dropped to below 15 per cent from the 18 per cent recorded last week.

The overall growth rate of Covid cases in the city for the week ending April 23 is 1.26 per cent.

The Mumbai civic body has also moved to combat shortfall in medical oxygen to hospitals - a crisis that has left those in Delhi struggling to keep thousands of people alive.

Earlier today the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Mumbai said it would set up 16 production plants for 12 city hospitals that will provide 43 metric tonnes of oxygen per day.

The project - to cost around Rs 90 crore - is to be finished within a month, the civic body said.

Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in the country, with nearly seven lakh active cases.

Today the state reported 67,160 new cases in 24 hours - a marginal increase from the 66,836 detected on Friday. The state also reported 676 Covid-linked deaths - a welcome drop the 773 from yesterday, which was the most in a day since the pandemic began two years ago.

The state's average positivity rate is 16.61 per cent and the case-fatality rate is 1.5 per cent.

In Maharashtra the worst-affected district continues to be Pune with 10,025 new cases in 24 hours. Nagpur reported over 8,000 and Nashik around 4,800 in the same time period.

On Wednesday Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced a series of restrictions - titled "Break the Chain" - to combat the deadly spike in coronavirus cases in the state.

These rules came into effect from 8 pm Thursday and will stay in place till 7 am May 1.

Mr Thackeray had already announced a night curfew and weekend lockdown to try and stem the growth of the virus in Maharashtra, but that did not seem to have had any effect.

This morning India reported nearly 3.5 lakh new Covid cases in the previous 24 hours, taking the active caseload past 25.5 lakh and the total number of cases reported to over 1.6 crore.

The devastating second Covid wave has all but crippled the country's health infrastructure, leaving hospitals overflowing, doctors crying in frustration and the relatives of patients scrambling to find life-saving drugs and oxygen cylinders.