Mumbai: '0.25 pc of international passengers tested Covid positive in 3 weeks'

Covid cases are on the decline in the city state and globally and it seems unlikely that they may rise hereafter some health officers have said In the past three weeks the city reported only 116 cases at an average of 55 per day which is lower than the figure from December 1 to 22Despite the absence of any restrictions on travel or curbs on New Year celebrations positive cases among international passengers were below 025 per cent in this periodmidday reported on December 22 that the variants that are responsible for the spike in cases in the United States Japan Brazil and China had been found in India before and the chances of a Covid surge in India were slim as almost all citizens are immune to Omicron variants Now after three weeks the trend of cases shows a declining trend and there is a very low possibility of cases rising hereafterCommuters exercise caution by donning masks at CSMT File picFrom December 23 to January 12 Mumbai registered 116 positive cases and zero deaths Prior to that in December there were 156 positive cases and two deaths The average number of daily cases has come down to 55 from sevenCases have also been declining across the state As per the state health report out of 336 lakh international passengers 7706 were tested with RTPCR and 19 were positivemdasha test positivity rate of 025 per centAlso Read Explainer Advantages side effects heres all you need to know about Covid19 nasal vaccineldquoIt has been three weeks and cases are not increasing On the contrary a declining trend has been observed in Mumbai as well as Maharashtra despite there being no restrictions on international travel Hardly 19 of 7706 passengers have tested positive till now a very low positivity raterdquo said Dr Pradip Awate state surveillance officer for epidemicprone diseasesHe added that going by the current trend in India and other parts of the world there is hardly any possibility that the cases may increase in Mumbai or the stateAccording to the World Health Organisation global Covid19 cases have declined compared to the previous week The number of newly reported weekly casesdecreased by 27 per cent in SouthEast Asia There has been a 76 per cent decline in cases compared to the earlier four weeks in the regionHowever the WHO mentioned that the trends need to be interpreted in light of the reduction in testing and delays in reporting in many countries during the yearend holiday seasonldquoCases havenrsquot been increasing and there is a very low possibility that they may increase now There are two main reasons Our society has vast coverage of vaccination and many have even got booster doses Also almost everyone got infected by Omicron in April 2022 creating immunity against variantsrdquo said Dr Santosh Kadam secretary Indian Medical Association MaharashtraIt was said that an Omicron subvariant BF7 was responsible for the rise in cases in China Likewise BQ1 and BQ11 are dominating in the US whereas BA275 BA2 have been found in other countries But these subvariants were also detected in India prior to December 2022 and did not create any spurt here There was a surge due to BA4 and BA5 in Europe in July but in India the variants did not make an impact025Percentage of positive cases among global passengers arriving in city over 3 weeks7706No of international flyers tested via RTPCR