The surge in Covid cases in Mumbai is driven by a virus variant that is more infectious but less lethal, the city's civic body chief Iqbal Singh Chahal said today. He also denied that the spike in recent weeks betrayed any carelessness or mishandling by the administration.
"We never lowered our guard and did our best. But the new mutant is so infectious that if one member of the family gets it, the entire family gets it in a few hours. This was not heard of earlier. This is only with the new mutant. So we are helpless there," Mr Chahal, the chief of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), told NDTV.