Maharashtra clocks 1.5 million Covid cases in 26 days; dip likely in 15 days

Maharashtra on Monday recorded 48,700 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the count to 4,343,727

Maharashtra on Monday recorded 48,700 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the count to 4,343,727. The comparatively low cases can be attributed to less number of tests as the state conducted 222,475 tests in the past 24 hours, as compared to 289,525 tests on Sunday and 286,412 on Saturday.

HT Image

The tally of active cases reduced to 674,770 as 71,736 recoveries were reported in a day, which comes to 15.53% of the total cases reported till date.

Death toll breached the 65,000-mark as 524 casualties were reported on Monday, taking tally to 65,284. Mumbai reported the highest toll with 71 deaths, followed by Aurangabad city with 57 deaths.

The surge in Covid-19 cases has continued in Maharashtra for more than two months. And the state has recorded more than one-and-a-half million cases (1,530,663) in the past 26 days and the figure is likely to reach close to two million cases by the end of this month, officials said.

To contain the spread, the state imposed partial lockdown from April 14 and complete lockdown from April 22, but its effect is yet to reflect in daily cases as they continue to hover around 60,000 to 67,000 over the past few days, except Monday.

While Mumbai, which was contributing the maximum cases in daily figures, has seen a dip in new cases, the numbers of the state is yet to come down. In the city, daily cases have reduced by 4,000-5000 a day. On April 14, the city reported 9,931 cases, whereas on Sunday 5,498 cases were recorded.

Officials said the districts contributing a high number of daily cases have yet to register decline. Besides, peak in cases have come late in a few districts. Officials said these are the two major reasons preventing improvement in average daily cases of the state.

Pune district and city showed some improvement as cases reduced to 7,929 on April 25, from 9,943 on April 18. However, there is also a slight rise in cases since April 22 when 7,388 cases were recorded, pointed out a senior official from the state health department. On Monday, it recorded 4,877 cases.

Nagpur, including the city and district, has also not shown any improvement with daily cases hovering around 8,000 for the past few days. On Sunday, it reported 7,948 cases and 5,879 cases on Monday.

Nashik, too, is contributing around 5,000 cases each day. On Sunday and Monday, 4,756 and 4,778 cases were reported, respectively. It saw a slight dip on Monday with 4,437 cases.

Aurangabad, Satara, Chandrapur, and Yavatmal districts also have been seeing a rise in cases in the past few days.

In Aurangabad, cases have increased to 1,853 on Sunday from 1,191 cases on April 21. In Satara, daily cases rose to 1,879 on Sunday from 1,175 on April 19. Chandrapur is experiencing a spike with 1,823 cases recorded on Sunday, whereas on April 20, the district clocked 1,106 cases. Daily cases in Yavatmal jumped to 1,539 on Sunday from 549 cases as on April 19, according to the data released by the state health department.

Dr Rahul Pandit, member of the state-appointed task force for the clinical management of critical Covid-19 patients, said it will take around 15 days for the daily numbers of the state to come down. “As per the early trend, the cases in Mumbai have started reducing, but there are many districts in the state that are experiencing a peak in cases in the last few days. As a result, the average daily cases of the state is not declining. The peak in those areas is likely to last for another 15 days, till then the state’s daily tally may not come down,” said Dr Pandit, who is also the director of critical care at Fortis Hospital, Mulund.

Though the city is showing fall in daily cases, the administration should not put their guards down, he stressed.

On Monday, Mumbai recorded 3,840 fresh cases and its tally rose to 631,484. The city’s active case count was 72,230.

With 5,879 cases, Nagpur recorded the second highest cases across the state. Nagpur city and district recorded 3,799 and 2,080 cases, respectively.

Meanwhile, the state set a record of vaccinating over 500,000 beneficiaries on Monday. With this, the state has covered around 14,901,336 beneficiaries till Monday evening. It is expected to cross the 15,000,000-mark of beneficiaries on Tuesday, said Dr Pradip Vyas, principal secretary, state health department. Earlier, the state had vaccinated a highest of 462,735 citizens on April 3.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said that 442,466 patients recovered from Covid-19 and were discharged in the past six days. On Monday alone, 71,736 patients were recovered, of them a maximum of 13,674 patients are from Pune alone, he said.