At 568, Maharashtra sees highest single-day deaths

Maharashtra on Wednesday reported its highest single-day toll of 568 since the Covid-19 pandemic, taking the toll to 61,911. It also added 67,468 fresh Covid-19 cases to push its tally over four million-mark to 4,027,827. The active case load in Maharashtra is now at a touching distance of 700,000 at 695,747.

Maharashtra on Wednesday reported its highest single-day toll of 568 since the Covid-19 pandemic, taking the toll to 61,911. It also added 67,468 fresh Covid-19 cases to push its tally over four million-mark to 4,027,827. The active case load in Maharashtra is now at a touching distance of 700,000 at 695,747.

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Mumbai, meanwhile, added 7,654 fresh infections to go over the 600,000-mark on Wednesday. The city, so far, has 601,713 confirmed cases, while the active case count in Mumbai climbed to 83,450. Mumbai added 62 deaths, taking its toll to 12,508.

Maharashtra, which is slated to go under a strict lockdown from Thursday evening, is projected to add another 400,000 active cases in the next 11 days. According to presentation on the Covid-19 situation given to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday, the state’s active case count will touch 1,094,996 by May 2. The state aims to arrest the rise in cases by introducing a complete lockdown. Of the nearly 1.1 million active cases, 300,000 cases are expected to be from Mumbai and its surrounding districts of Thane, Palghar and Raigad.

A health department official said the state is expected to face a shortage of hospital beds, unless the chain of transmission is broken through a lockdown. “Our projections had showed us that we would have an active caseload of 1.1 million by the end of this month. Even more worrying was the shortage of all types of beds across the state, including major cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur,” the official said.

As per the presentation, barring Amravati, Jalgaon and Kolhapur districts, Maharashtra is projected to face a severe shortage of hospital beds. Mumbai, which is projected to have an active caseload of 146,065 people, will be short of 6,433 oxygenated beds, 1,477 ICU beds and 121 ventilator beds. Similarly, Pune’s active caseload is projected to touch 185,162. It is projected to have a shortfall of 34,528 isolation beds, 13,118 oxygenated beds, 2,240 ICU beds, and 518 ventilator beds.

Fourteen of the 35 districts in Maharashtra have a high positivity rate on a week-on-week basis, as per the presentation of the state health department. The positivity rate in these 14 districts is higher than the state’s overall positivity rate of 16.36%. Osmanabad topped the districts with a high positivity rate at 39.25%, followed by Parbhani and Hingoli at 36.78% and 36.7%, respectively. Pune district had a positivity rate of 30.43%, while Thane district had a positivity rate of 30.67%.

Since April 14, Maharashtra has added 3,107 deaths and the senior health department officials attributed the jump in fatalities to late admission to hospital. They, however, dismissed shortage of oxygen and remdesivir as contributors to deaths. “Late arrivals continue to be the main factors. Besides, the sheer number of infections, we are bound to get high number of deaths. We do not think oxygen shortage or drug shortage is a factor,” said a health department official, who did not wish to be named.

Dr Subhash Salunkhe, former director general of health services in the state and advisor to the state on Covid-19, said, “With more and more people getting infected, we will see a high number of patients land up in hospital. Roughly 10% of the cases are clinical. Late arrivals make it difficult for doctors to save the person. There could be some stray cases of deaths due to oxygen shortage but it is not the main factor.”

He added that the case fatality rate in the state is under control. The CFR stood at 1.54% on Wednesday. “Had the CFR shown an upward graph we would have been in a really bad position.”

Of the 568 deaths reported on Wednesday, 303 occurred in the past 48 hours and 160 in the past week. The remaining 105 deaths are from the period before past week. Area in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region cumulatively reported 88 fatalities in the past 24 hours. Pune district saw 36 deaths, while Nashik and Ahmednagar reported 29 deaths each. Nagpur district added 41 deaths, Bhandara 23 and Nandurbad 24. Osmanabad and Beed districts added 17 and 12 deaths, respectively.