218 Covid cases in city, highest in 7 months; four deaths in state

State health officials, however, said it should not be counted as a 24 hours data as some reports of Monday were added to the report. On Monday, the state reported 248 new cases with one death.

Mumbai: The state on Tuesday reported four Covid-19 deaths and 711 new cases, taking the active cases tally in Maharashtra to 3,792. Out of the 711 cases, 218 were reported in Mumbai. Both state and city figures were the highest number of single-day cases since September 2022.

State health officials, however, said it should not be counted as a 24 hours data as some reports of Monday were added to the report. On Monday, the state reported 248 new cases with one death.

Out of the four deaths, one was reported each in Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporation and Ratnagiri and two in Satara.

Dr Babita Kamlapurkar, in charge of the epidemiology department, said, “We are analysing the Covid-19 deaths but it is clear that people with comorbidities need to be cautious. Citizens should mask-up and follow other Covid-19 appropriate behaviour like hand hygiene and cough hygiene.”

In Mumbai, 90% (197) of the new cases remained asymptomatic. The city now has 1162 active cases out of which 91 are in hospital.

Dr Subhash Salunkhe, epidemiologist and member of the National Covid-19 Taskforce, said the most positive part of the omicron and its sub-variants has not been virulent.

“We are endemic. The virus and sub-variants are going to be around. There is no increase in virulence. We should continue with genome sequencing and keep a watch on hospitalisation,” he said.

The state health department, too, has instructed district and corporation health officials to send all Covid-19 positive samples for genome sequencing. The state health official blamed XBB.1.16-omicron subvariant for the present spurt in Covid-19 cases in the state.