Coronavirus: Mumbai replaces Wuhan as infection capital

One of the worst coronavirus spikes ever recorded has hit a city of 18 million people. Its outbreak is now worse than Wuhan's at its peak.

The city of Mumbai has recorded more than 51,000 cases of the coronavirus, taking it past the peak in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged.

The number of coronavirus cases in India continued to rapidly increase on Wednesday, local time, with officials reporting nearly 10,000 new cases over the past 24 hours.

India has recorded 276,583 positive cases, the fifth highest in the world, and 7745 deaths.

The actual numbers, like elsewhere in the world, are thought to be far higher due to a number of reasons such as limited testing.

The spike has come as the Indian government moves forward with reopening restaurants, shopping malls and religious places in most of its states after more than two months of lockdown.

People walk along the Arabian Sea coast in Mumbai, India after restrictions were lifted. Picture: Rafiq Maqbool

The government has already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen. However, subways, hotels, schools and colleges remain shuttered nationwide.

India is still attempting to keep its coronavirus cases under control – putting some airline cabin crew in protective suits with masks, plastic visors and blue rubber gloves.

But according to media reports, cabin crews had no idea if they were supposed to quarantine post-flight.

Mumbai airport also put in place social distancing rules but these quickly fell apart when angry travellers harangued staff after flights were cancelled last-minute.

Doctors request roadside vendors to wear masks during a free medical camp in Dharavi, one of Asia's largest slums in Mumbai, India. Picture: Rafiq Maqbool

And while Mumbai struggles with a spike in coronavirus cases, India’s capital Delhi is also experiencing a tidal wave of new infections.

Delhi authorities warned yesterday that they expect cases to shoot up almost 20 times to more than half a million in the coming weeks.

Manish Sisodia, Delhi’s deputy chief minister, said after a crisis meeting that authorities expected infections to soar to 550,000 by the end of July, up from almost 30,000 at present.

“There will be 44,000 cases by June 15, 100,000 by June 30, 225,000 by July 15, and we’ll need to prepare necessary infrastructure accordingly,” Mr Sisodia told reporters.

He said the city of around 20 million people, where hospitals are already stretched and anecdotal evidence suggests crematoriums are struggling, needed 80,000 hospital beds.

Delhi’s health minister last week said that it had around 9000 beds available for coronavirus patients.

Globally, there have been more than 7.2 million known coronavirus infections, with a global death toll of 409,617.