As the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Maharashtra’s capital city of Mumbai quickly became one of the worst-affected cities in the country, with massive daily caseloads. In the second ongoing wave of infections too, Mumbai was reporting some of the highest daily caseloads. Now, however, Bengaluru in Karnataka has overtaken Mumbai with more than double the number of active coronavirus patients.
As per the bulletins dated April 25, 2021 for the respective cities, Bengaluru has 1,80,542 active COVID-19 cases as compared to 75,740 in Mumbai. The total caseload recorded in Bengaluru till date is 6,53,656 as compared to Mumbai’s 6,27,644 cases.
Bengaluru consistently reported record single-day spikes last week, reporting 20,733 new patients on April 25; 17,342 on April 24; and 16,662 on April 23. Mumbai, meanwhile, reported 5,542 new patients COVID-19 patients on April 25; 5,888 patients on April 24; and 7,221 on April 23. While several people have pointed out that underreporting is happening across the country, Mumbai’s decline in daily cases is significant as it was reporting an average of 8,000 cases per day since early March.
While Maharashtra had announced weekend lockdown in the state on April 4, 2021, strict restrictions like section 144 were imposed during the weekdays. Several districts of Karnataka have also been under strict curbs till May 4, and a weekend lockdown is also in place in the state, including in Bengaluru.
As of April 26, 2021, Karnataka has the third highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the country, after Maharashtra (7,00,207) and Uttar Pradesh (2,97,616) with 2,62,181 active cases, per data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.