In the wake of an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases, the Mumbai civic body on Sunday said it has decided to make more beds operational in medical facilities treating patients of the viral infection in the city. On Saturday, the city reported 9,108 new cases of coronavirus, the highest spike in a single day.

"We have operationalised an additional 3,000 beds in dedicated COVID-19 health care centres and dedicated COVID-19 hospitals under the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) in last seven days," civic commissioner I S Chahal said in a statement. "The number of beds available on our real-time live dashboard for allotment has gone up from 12,906 to 15,971," the official said.

Chahal further said 4,160 beds were vacant for allotment on Saturday night. "We are operationalising an additional 3,000 beds (including 400 in ICUs) in the dedicated COVID-19 health care centres and dedicated COVID-19 hospitals in the coming seven days," he said.

Chahal also noted that some patients were becoming critical by waiting for their choice of a medical facility for hospitalisation. Hence, he appealed to patients not to wait for hospitalisation.

They should occupy beds wherever available for immediate treatment if they aresymptomatic, as the treatment protocol is similar everywhere and well established now.Abundant beds are available in other hospitals," he said.

Chahal said they have also operationalised 30 CCC-2 (COVID-19 care centres) facilities for asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in the last seven days with a capacity to accommodate 4,600 patients. "Another 18,300 beds in CCC-2 facilities are available in reserve with us," he said.

The CCC-1 facilities are set up mostly in hotels and halls and do not have 24-hour monitoring facility, while CCC-2 are government facilities where doctors and nurses are available round-the-clock.