Mumbai: There has been a 37% rise in the weekly Coronavirus caseload in the city, with 2,554 cases registered between December 18 and 24 as against 1,447 cases between December 11 and17.

While there is no official word on the spread of Omicron within the community, the daily tally in Mumbai continued to rise with 673 cases on Friday. The caseload has been growing at over 15% every day in the last few days.

The Maharashtra tally grew proportionately to 1,410 cases on Friday, with 70% of the cases hailing from Mumbai and its surrounding municipalities (962). The daily test positivity rate in Mumbai climbed from 0.5% at the start of the week to 1.7% on Friday.

However, Covid deaths continued to be low, with Maharashtra registering 12 deaths, including one in Mumbai. Meanwhile, the BMC on Friday said actor Kareena Kapoor Khan’s genome sequencing report was negative for the Omicron variant. Kapoor also posted on Instagram that she had tested-negative for Covid-19 on Friday. While thanking her family and friends for their support through her quarantine, she also thanked the BMC for “being so amazing and prompt...”

The number of active cases in Mumbai rose sharply to 3,227 from around half the number two weeks ago. The state has 8,426 active cases.

However, the number of sealed buildings in Mumbai has remained steady at 14. Only 7% of the 15,299 Covid hospital beds in the city are occupied and the number of critical cases hasn’t increased (145) in weeks. “While the number of Covid patients has increased, hospitalization has certainly not,” said Dr Gautam Bhansali, who is a member of the state task force on Covid-19.

Task force member Dr Rahul Pandit said the rise in cases in Mumbai is “very concerning”. He said there is an urgent need to ramp up genome sequencing and identify the strain that is dominant. “Our public health response will depend a lot on identifying the predominant strain. If it is Delta, we will expect a rise in hospitalization in the next couple of weeks. If it is Omicron, then we need stricter policies with zero tolerance to no-mask and the need to adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour,” said Dr Pandit.