Coronavirus Outbreak: Dharavi Death And Social Distancing, A Huge Task In Slums

The death of a patient who died of coronavirus in the Dharavi slum in Mumbai highlights the challenge of social distancing. Authorities are now scrambling to trace the contacts of the 56 year-old and have sealed the building.

The Mumbai Municipal Corporation authorities are in the process of sanitising the entire premises which has 300 homes and 90 shops all of which have been sealed. Dharavi is said to be a slum which houses 1 million people, frequently described as the largest slum in the country.

The Dharavi death also brings into sharp focus the living conditions of slum-dwellers who live in cheek-by-jowl living space. The danger with the rise in number of positive cases increasing by the day, looms large. Social distancing given the cramped space in which these slum dwellers are forced to live is a near impossibility. This is precisely why the Maharashtra government ordered the municipal corporation in Mumbai to shift people in the case of the Dharavi slum who could potentially face a danger of infection to community centres and marriage halls, among other such places.

There are dozens of Dharavis across urban and semi-urban areas of India. The challenge that lies ahead for the state governments everywhere is to contain the spread of virus in these areas, even if one case were to crop up.

The total number of Coronavirus cases in the country has now approached 1900 with more than 50 deaths. The figure nearly doubled in a few days and slums pose a serious challenge to healthcare officials mainly because of the physical difficulty of social distancing.