COVID-19: 883 fresh recoveries reported in Mumbai; city's fatality toll rises to 7474

Mumbai's COVID-19 tally surged to 1,37,678 after at least 587 persons tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, August 25. However, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation clarified that the complete case data is not available and will be updated on Wednesday. At present, there are 17,931 active COVID-19 cases in the city. The number of recovered soared to 1,11,967 after 883 patients were discharged in the day. Meanwhile, 35 COVID-19 deaths were reported on Tuesday, propelling Mumbai's fatality toll to 7,474. 27 of the aforesaid deceased had co-morbidities.

7,15,543 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in various laboratories across Mumbai till August 24. The number of COVID-19 cases in the city grew at a rate of 0.79% from August 18-August 24. As of August 24, 3846 CCC2 beds out of the total capacity of 23,437 beds are occupied. The number of oxygen beds, ventilator beds, and ICU beds in Mumbai stands at 8,905, 913, and 1,435 respectively. 

While there are 599 active containment zones currently, 5,936 buildings have been sealed. 3,359 high-risk contacts have been traced in the last 24 hours. At present, 3,015 high-risk contacts are admitted to Corona Care Centres 1. The patient doubling rate in the city is 88 days. The recovery rate of the Mumbai district remains constant at 81%. 

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The novel coronavirus crisis in India

Currently, there are 31,67,323 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India out of which 24,04,585 patients have recovered while 58,390 fatalities have been reported. Addressing the media earlier in the day, ICMR Director General Dr. Balram Bhargava elaborated on India's success in ramping up COVID-19 testing in the past 6 months. Mentioning the fact that the country breached the one million testing mark, he highlighted that testing had been increased gradually.

While conceding that rapid antigen tests constitute 30-40% of the overall tests conducted in India, Dr. Bhargava affirmed that RT-PCR tests are growing at a rapid rate. According to him, some states had reduced RT-PCR tests by 1-3% after finding rapid antigen tests simpler. Observing that the specificity is nearly 100% for both types of tests, the ICMR DG revealed that the sensitivity of the rapid antigen test is 60-85% as against the RT-PCR test having a sensitivity of 80-95%. 

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