Covid cases nearly double in Mumbai, indicate 3rd wave

On Wednesday, Mumbai reported 2,445 Covid-19 cases, the highest one-day surge reported after 235 days — on May 18, 2,664 cases were registered. The city recorded a 83.4 per cent rise in cases on Wednesday compared to Tuesday.

Similarly, the number of cases in Maharashtra shot up by 79.5 per cent in the last 24 hours — from 2,172 to 3,900 — the highest one-day surge registered after September 10.

With this sudden spike, the state task force officials indicated the start of the third wave, where Omicron would dominate over the currently prevalent Delta variant.

“The third wave is here and we can certainly say that Omicron is already at the community level. As seen in the last few days, the doubling rate has become less than one day and several clustered transmissions are being recorded, which are indicative of the presence of Omicron,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the task force.

This claim can be substantiated with the latest findings of the community surveillance conducted by the Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), where 38 samples have been detected with Omicron, indicating the possible spread of the variant among the community.

“Since December 21, we have started conducting community surveillance, which will run till December 31. Of the 380 samples sequenced so far, 38 have been detected with Omicron,” said an officer associated with IISER. On a daily basis, 300 samples from Mumbai and 100 samples from Pune are being sent for community surveillance.

Talking to The Indian Express, Dr Pradip Awate, the state surveillance officer, said that until each of the 38 patients are being investigated, it would be “too abrupt” to confirm that the spread of Omicron at the community level is contributing to the third wave.

“Earlier, we had found a case in Pune, which was being considered as the first case of community-based Omicron infection. But later, it was found that the patient had travel history. So, we have to individually investigate all these patients to find if they had travelled outside or unknowingly came in touch with an index patient,” said Dr Awate. “Once we have the data, we would be able to confirm community transmission,” he added.

In all, the state has registered 252 Omicron cases and 99 of the patients have been discharged.

The active cases in the state stands at 14,065, of which 8,060 are from Mumbai, followed by Pune with 2,053 cases. But most new patients are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, requiring little hospitalisation.

Dr Joshi said, “As the transmission rate of Omicron is much higher than Delta, soon, the state would be swamped with cases. But hospitalisation rate would be lower compared to the Delta infection, which is a bigger killer. Within weeks, Omicron will replace Delta in 80-90 per cent of the patients.”

“With this, we believe it might mark the ‘endemic’, as the Delta variant will be replaced,” he added.

Earlier, Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope had said that the possibility of a fresh lockdown in the state would emerge if daily oxygen requirement exceeded 800 metric tonne.