Mumbai, Aug 18 (PTI) Mumbai reported 283 new coronavirus positive cases and five deaths on Wednesday, which took its infection tally to 7,40,007 and toll to 15,930, a civic official said.

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The city's average case doubling rate improved to 2,057 days from 1,986 days that was recorded on Tuesday, he said.

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At present, there are 2,686 active COVID-19 cases in the metropolis, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official said.

After witnessing less than 200 COVID-19 cases on two consecutive days in a row, the city reported a marginal rise in the daily infection count as well as fatalities on Wednesday as compared to Tuesday, when there were 198 cases and two deaths, the lowest since March 9, 2020.

Notably, this is the fifth consecutive day the slums and chawls in the city are free of containment zones, while the number of sealed buildings stands at 24, the official added.

With 38,703 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, Mumbai's overall test count reached 87,45,957.

The city's recovery count has now increased to 7,18,955 as 297 patients got discharged from hospitals. Its average recovery rate is 97 per cent.

The average growth rate of COVID-19 cases for the period between August 11 and 17 is 0.04 per cent, he said.

This year, Mumbai had reported the highest 11,163 daily cases on April 4, 2021, while the highest 90 fatalities were witnessed on May 1, 2021.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)