Maharashtra records 11,766 new Covid cases, 406 deaths

The state saw the addition of 11,766 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, taking the tally to 5,887,853

The state saw the addition of 11,766 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, taking the tally to 5,887,853. A total of 406 fresh deaths and reconciliation of 2,213 deaths from the past few weeks took the state’s toll to 106,367.

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Mumbai reported 721 new cases and 24 deaths taking the tally to 714,216 and the toll to 15,079. As part of the ongoing reconciliation process, the state has been adding few hundred deaths which were delayed reporting over the past two to three months. Of the 2,213 death reconciled on Friday, 546 are from Pune, 398 from Thane, 291 in Ahmednagar, 194 in Nashik, 160 in Nagpur, 129 in Beed, 53in Satara, 49 in Chandrapur, 46 in Buldhana, 45 in Nanded among others.

The state had added 8,074 deaths to its tally between May 26 and June 10. It has, however, denied to have hidden any deaths of Covid-19 patients.

The public health department has said that the recent addition of the 8,074 deaths over the past 16 days was part of the reconciliation process, by which, the data entry of Covid-19 deaths is done to the state and Central portal. The government has also said that the updation of the deaths to the portal was delayed owing to the overburdened staff over the past two months during the peak of the second wave of the pandemic. It has also blamed the private hospitals for the delay in entering the information of deaths late.

As part of the reconciliation exercise, the state government added 8,074 deaths from the past three-four months to its tally, witnessing a sudden spike and fatality rate. The case fatality rate jumped to 1.77% on June 10, from 1.61% on May 25, a day before the reconciled numbers started adding to the list of the death toll.

“The updation of deaths lags because of the technical reasons. The state government never intended to hide the number of cases and deaths. The reconciliation process is undertaken every 15 days to tally with the data updated on two portals of the Central government and weed out the repetition of the cases. Confirmation of the cause of death also takes some time leading to the delay in the data entry about the deaths,” a statement issued by the department has stated.

Kolhapur (1769), Sangli (1369), Pune (1400), Ahmednagar (697) districts continued to report high daily caseload. Of the 406 deaths reported on Friday highest, 110, were from the Palghar district followed by 50 in Pune, 22 in Satara, 20 in Ahmednagar and 18 in Kolhapur. The state case fatality rate stands at 1.81%, while the recovery rate stands at 95.4%.

Meanwhile, as many as 70% of the daily caseload of Covid-19 is from the rural or semi-urban parts of the state. Of the 12,207 cases registered on June 10, 8,639 were from the rural areas while 3,568 were from the jurisdiction of the 27 municipal corporations. Barring Mumbai Metropolitan Region, all other six divisions, classified for the health administration, have been witnessing more number patients in rural and semi-urban areas. In divisions like Aurangabad, Latur almost 90% of the patients are reported in these areas.

Two months ago, on April 10, around 40% of 55411 cases registered on that day were from rural areas while 59.66% were from the cities. In MMR, almost 85% of the cases were from nine big cities, in the Pune division, more than a third of patients were from cities.

According to the presentation made to the state cabinet on Thursday, a few districts like Sindhudurg, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Raigad are doing bad on the Covid-19 parameters including growth and positivity rate, active patients etc. The weekly positivity rate in six districts is above 10% and much above the state percentage of 5.89%. Kolhapur (16.06%) tops the chart followed by Raigad (14.90), Ratnagiri (13.74%), Pune (12.19%), Satara (11.54%) and Sindhudurg (11.23%). The districts have witnessed a high growth rate as well.

Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer said, “The districts which have been witnessing a high number of cases, had started picking their infection curve late in the second wave. Sangli, Kolhapur are some of them, though Satara is witnessing exceptionally high cases despite having started getting cases from the beginning. We expect the cases in these districts to start dropping in the next few days. This will help state’s positivity rate dropping below 5% as the infection is reaching to its endemic level.”

Dr Lancelot Pinto, an epidemiologist from Hinduja Hospital said, “The rural areas are likely to get affected this time because they were not exposed during the first wave, because of the strict lockdown. They have no antibodies developed during the first wave. Unless the vaccination is escalated everybody is going to get affected at some time. But the cases there will start stabilising soon.”

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray during his interaction with sarpanches from Vidarbha and Marathawada appealed to them to put in efforts to make their villages Covid-19 free. “State has augmented its health infrastructure, but the endeavour should be towards keeping people unaffected so that they do not need to come to the hospital. The village heads should form smaller groups to take care of the villagers to keep them unaffected of infection,” he said.

The state has 161,704 active patients, while 6024 are institutionally quarantined. 254,301 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours resulting in the daily test positivity rate of 4.62%.