COVID-19 positivity rate has been rising in Mumbai (File)
Mumbai's COVID-19 positivity rate or the number of cases per 100 tests has risen to 8.40 per cent from 6 per cent yesterday, the entertainment and financial hub's civic agency said in its evening medical bulletin today.
The city reported 739 new COVID-19 cases today, the highest since February 1 this year, when Mumbai reported 803 cases.
Mumbai's health authorities have told officials to immediately increase testing "on a war footing".
"Daily new cases have tremendously increased in Mumbai, with monsoon around the corner, we will now see a rapid rise in symptomatic cases," the civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, or BMC, said today.
The BMC wants the vaccination drive for 12-18 years category and booster doses to be pushed aggressively.
Fearing another sharp rise in symptomatic cases, the Mumbai civic body has asked for jumbo field hospitals to be kept adequately staffed and on alert now.
Private hospitals have been asked to be on alert too.
If hospitalisation increases in the coming days, the jumbo hospital in Malad is to be used on priority, the BMC said.