Maharashtra adds 833 Covid cases, 15 deaths, lowest since Nov 9

Maharashtra on Saturday added 833 new Covid-19 cases and 15 fatalities – the lowest since November 9

Maharashtra on Saturday added 833 new Covid-19 cases and 15 fatalities – the lowest since November 9. The overall case count rose to 6,629,577, while the toll climbed to 140,722.

A BMC health worker collects the swab sample of a passenger for Covid test at Dadar station on Saturday. In the past 24 hours, Maharashtra tested 104,739 samples and recorded a positivity rate of 0.79%. (Bhushan Koyande/HT PHOTO)

Meanwhile, Mumbai added 188 new infections, pushing its Covid-19 tally to 761,641. Mumbai added one Covid-19 fatality on Saturday, the health department report stated.

The state’s active case count dropped to 10,249, after 2,271 were discharged after recovery on Saturday. Mumbai’s current active caseload was 3,378.

In the past 24 hours, the state tested 104,739 samples and recorded a positivity rate of 0.79%. So far, the state has tested 64,594,210 samples and has an overall Covid-19 positivity rate of 10.26%.

Maharashtra has recorded around 1,000 cases daily for nearly a fortnight now, and state health department officials said that the daily numbers could go down in the 700-900 range in a few weeks if this trend continues.

“The tests continue to be over 100,000, and we still have been reporting cases between 800 and 1,000 for over a week. This trend is good for the state. We can see a further drop in the daily caseload in the coming weeks if this downward trend continues,” said a health department official, requesting anonymity of name.

Meanwhile, Mumbai has reported less than 300 cases since November 11. On November 15, it recorded only 182 infections.

A chunk of the state’s new cases continued to come from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik districts. Municipal Corporations in MMR, excluding Mumbai, cumulatively reported 139 cases and seven deaths.

Pune district, meanwhile, recorded 239 new cases and four deaths on Saturday, while Nashik district reported 52 cases and one death. Ahmednagar reported 88 new cases and one fatality.

In Vidarbha, the districts continued to report new infections in single digits. Akola, Yavatmal, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts did not report any new infection on Saturday.