The Maharashtra government held a meeting on Wednesday chaired by Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the state. However, no decision on imposing lockdown yet was taken in the meeting. The meeting was held with Health Minister Rajesh Tope and senior govt officers in Mumbai.

Earlier, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar had said the city authorities will have to impose lockdown in Mumbai if daily COVID cases cross the 20,000-mark. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray might also address the citizens in a couple of days, she said.

Amid the spike, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chief Iqbal Singh Chahal appealed to all the home quarantined patients to strictly abide by home quarantine guidelines to stop the spread of the virus in Mumbai.

“I appeal to all the home quarantined patients to strictly abide by home quarantine guidelines to contain the spread of the virus in Mumbai at the earliest possible. I also appeal to the citizens at large to strictly follow Covid appropriate behaviour. There is no reason to panic but at the same time, all of us have to be extremely cautious and exercise extreme Covid appropriate behaviour. Mask is mandatory in the public domain and citizens should refrain from going to crowded places,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mumbai is expected to cross its second wave peak detection of 11,206 cases in the next 24 hours. It had taken the city almost 50 days to reach the 11,000 mark during the second wave. However, in the third wave, the level is likely to be breached in just 15 days according to data given by the health ministry.

The Omicron variant of SARS-Cov-2 is likely to be responsible for almost 80 per cent of the current cases in Mumbai and could grow bigger, Chahal had said.