Even as India emerges from the lockdown, covid-19 is here to stay. Its rapid spread through Mumbai’s slums demonstrates how physical distancing protocols cannot apply to highly dense urban areas in India.
In the coming months, Indian cities are likely to see this pattern repeated. They have a small window of opportunity to prepare, and can do so using several relatively straightforward measures, before the human and economic costs begin to mount.
The pattern of spread in Mumbai over April and May shows a clear concentration in administrative wards with large slum populations.
Disaggregated data until 25 April showed a relatively rapid spread in such wards. The earliest major cluster was in Worli Village (Ward G/S), an urban village with