'3rd Wave is Here': Mumbai Mayor Sounds Alarm as City Logs 28% of Aug Cases in 6 Days of Sept

Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said Tuesday that the third wave of Covid-19 had already arrived in the city. She was talking about the upcoming festive season in Maharashtra, and urged people to remain in their houses and practice distancing. The financial capital has reported over 28 per cent of the total COVID-19 cases it had recorded in the entire month of August in the first six days of this month, as per the civic data.

“The third-wave of Covid-19 is not coming, it is here,” said Pednekar, adding that an announcement regarding the matter had already been made in Nagpur, ANI reported.

She espoused the motto of “Mera Ghar, Mera Bapa” (My house, my lord) for the upcoming Ganesh Utsav festivities, urging people to remain in their homes, adding that Mandal facilities were also keeping a minimum of ten people at a time, through changing shifts.

State Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had on Monday warned that the “third wave of Covid-19 was at our doorsteps”. He said the health of citizens was a priority and celebrations could be held later as well, with fears of a third wave occurring amid an upcoming festive season in the country.

“We can celebrate festivals later. Let us prioritise the lives and health of our citizens. The situation can go out of hand in view of the spike in daily cases,” he had said in a statement. “Who would like to impose restrictions on festivals and religious programmes? But people’s lives are important,” he had added.

Meanwhile, the spike in the cases has left the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials worried ahead of the festive season beginning on September 10 with the Ganesh Chaturthi.

Suresh Kakani, the additional municipal commissioner, said in view of the current situation, the Mumbai civic body has decided to ramp up COVID-19 testing, hire more clean-up marshals to fine people spitting at public places, and keep jumbo COVID-19 centres ready.

“One month is important for us. Currently, people are going out for the ten-day Ganpati festival (beginning September 10). They will return after immersion (Anant Chaturdashi). Hence this period and the next 15 days will be very crucial for us,” Kakani said. In normal times, pandals set up by various mandals in Mumbai and in other cities in Maharashtra attract thousands of devotees during the Ganesh festival.

Mumbai on Monday reported 379 fresh coronavirus positive cases and five fatalities, taking the tally of infections to 7,46,725 and the death toll to 15,998. The city is now left with 3,771 active cases, a BMC official said. The daily COVID-19 cases in Mumbai remained above 400 since September 1, but after a gap of five days, Mumbai logged less than 400 infections on Monday. Mumbai had recorded 496 cases and two fatalities the day before. The data shows that Mumbai already reported 2,570 COVID-19 infections and 21 fatalities in the last six days of September, which comes at 28.9 per cent of the total 9,147 cases recorded in the entire month of August, which had seen 157 fatalities due to COVID-19. With the surge in daily cases, the active COVID-19 cases, which had dipped to 2,700, jumped to 3,771 as of September 6.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported 3,626 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the lowest daily count since since February 15, and 37 fresh fatalities, taking the infection tally to 64,89,800 and the death toll to 1,37,811, a health department official said. The fresh deaths were lowest since March 8. The number of recovered patients outnumbered the new cases in the last 24 hours.

With inputs from PTI.

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