According to a study conducted by the researchers at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Colaba, the next spike in Covid-19 cases in Mumbai is likely to be less contagious than the previous ones, according to media reports.
The study further said the rate of hospitalisation may spike after the city relaxes all the restrictions in the first week of November ahead of the festival season.
According to the TIFR team’s data as of October 26, Mumbai would be able to achieve ‘herd immunity’ by January with around 80 per cent of the slum population and 55 per cent of the non-slum population getting exposed to the virus.
According to a Times of India report, Dr Sandeep Juneja, dean of TIFR’s School of Technology and Computer Science, said : “Even if there is an increase in intermingling for Diwali of the same order we saw for Ganpati, corresponding increase in infections will be lesser.”
“This is because more and more residents of the financial capital have been exposed to the deadly coronavirus now as compared to August when the Ganpati festival ended. People have developed some kind of immunity against the virus,” he added. The researchers formulated the new projections after assuming that the economy and local trains will be fully functional for the public from November.
The team also believes that the resumption of education institutes in 2021 would not contribute significantly to the rate of hospitalisation.
For the study, TIFR collaborated with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to conduct serosurveys in three civic wards.
An earlier study published in July by TIFR had said that 57 per cent in slums and 16 per cent in non-slums had developed antibodies against the Covid-19 as against 42 per cent and 18 per cent in August. The dip is reportedly due to the decline in antibodies months after infection.
The team further noted that if 29.3 lakh people over the age of 50 years in Greater Mumbai are vaccinated on February 1, the number of fatalities thereafter will drop by an estimated 64 per cent.
Published on November 3, 2020
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