Mumbai heads for highest number of daily new Covid-19 cases for any city in the world

With over one-fifth of India's cases, Mumbai is undoubtedly the country's biggest hotspot, and at least 0.22 per cent of the city's population has now been infected.

Mumbai is now second only to Moscow globally in terms of new Covid-19 cases added each day. But while it is slowing down in Moscow, the opposite can only be said for Mumbai. Could India's financial capital soon be the world's biggest pandemic hotspot?

With over one-fifth of India's cases, Mumbai is undoubtedly the country's biggest hotspot, and at least 0.22 per cent of the city's population has now been infected. But the world will be closely watching Mumbai as it adds large numbers of new cases each day, and hasn't yet seen its peak.

Since the beginning of May, Mumbai's case count has more than tripled.

Since the middle of May, Mumbai has had more cases than New York City, where the pandemic's first wave is now beginning to recede. At its peak, on April 6, New York City recorded 6,504 cases, which is over three times than Mumbai's case count on May 22 - its highest so far.

Thus, Mumbai's peak is still a long way from that of New York City.

New York City is just three-quarters the size of Mumbai in terms of population. The two other cities with similar population to Mumbai are Moscow in Russia and Sao Paulo in Brazil - both with over 12 million residents each, and also, global hotspots.

On May 22, Mumbai recorded 1,751 new cases, the most for any city in the world except Moscow. The seven-day average of cases was higher in Mumbai than Sao Paulo. Moscow is reporting fewer new cases each day, unlike Mumbai.

At these trends, Mumbai could soon be reporting the most new cases every day. Over the last week, the growth rate of cases in Mumbai has substantially exceeded that of Sao Paulo and Moscow, where the first wave appears to be declining.

But while Sao Paulo does far worse than Mumbai in terms of deaths, Russia does slightly worse. Mumbai reported 909 deaths so far, while Sao Paulo 3,352 deaths and Moscow 1,867. In the last seven days, Mumbai reported 254 deaths, Sao Paulo 678 and Moscow 509.

As Mumbai's cases rise, potentially faster than any city, it will hope that its fatality rates remain in control.