COVID-19

Mumbai has an estimated 3 million migrant workers. Even if the railways ferry about 2400 people in two trains per day, it will take a couple of months to transport them back home.

It was not a mean feat — battling poverty, the lockdown and even antagonism from some higher powers. But in an amazing display of method, generosity and resilience, youth from Bhagat Singh Nagar slum gathered under the banner of ‘Bhakar Foundation’ to ensure noone in the slum went hungry.

Over 90 health care workers, including nurses and doctors, have tested positive in Mumbai with an additional 150-200 nurses under quarantine. The United Nurses Association has moved the SC seeking mandatory protection kit for all health care workers in isolation wards.

With their money running out and little food and water available, cancer patients living on footpaths near the Tata Memorial Hospital are caught in the lockdown, with no way home.

Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) conducted a rapid assessment in over 20 settlements across Greater Mumbai where low-income communities live and work, and found that they not only face risk of disease, but a threat to basic sustenance in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mumbai’s health officials are working on a war footing to ensure containment of the virus by creating containment zones and sanitising entire localities besides extensive screening. But they face a humongous task.