8 of 10 districts with highest active Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra, says Centre

Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nanded and Ahmednagar are among the top 10 districts with the highest number of active Covid-19 cases, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said on Tuesday.

The Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) on Tuesday once again expressed concern over the pandemic situation in Maharashtra, highlighting that of the 10 districts with the highest number of active cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) across the country, eight are from the western state.

Representative Image (HT Photos)

“There are 10 districts across the country which have the most number of active cases-Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane, Nashik, Aurangabad, Bengaluru Urban, Nanded, Delhi and Ahmednagar,” Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said during a briefing on the Covid-19 situation in the country.

Except for Bengaluru Urban in Karnataka, and Delhi, all the other districts are in Maharashtra. Pune’s active Covid-19 caseload is at 59,475, while Mumbai has 46,248 such cases. Nagpur has an active caseload of 38,298, while the corresponding figure for Thane is 35,264, according to the state health department’s data. Overall, Maharashtra contributes 336,584 active cases of the viral disease to the national figure of 540,720. This is 62.24% of the total active infections across the country.

Bhushan further said that Maharashtra has a weekly average positivity of 23%, as against the weekly national average positivity of 5.65%. “Punjab has a weekly average of 8.82%, Chhattisgarh 8%, Madhya Pradesh 7.28%, Tamil Nadu 2.50%, Karnataka 2.45%, Gujarat 2.20% and Delhi 2.04%,” he added.

On reports that the Union government has rejected the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) request to conduct door-to-door vaccinations, Bhushan clarified, “Till date, we haven’t received any specific request from the Maharashtra government. In India, we do universal immunisation, but even there, we’ve not done door-to-door vaccination.”

Maharashtra’s infection tally of 2,745,518 is higher than that of other states and Union territories and also includes 54,283 related fatalities. Its tally rose by 31,643 infections on Monday, a day after 40,414 cases were detected in the state in what was its highest single-day rise since the beginning of the pandemic.

Amid indications that chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is leaning towards another lockdown, minister Nawab Malik on Monday said that the state “cannot afford another lockdown.” The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), too, has said that it is opposed to any possible shutdown.