Nine districts of Maharashtra accounting for 50% fresh Covid-19 cases

Even as the state’s daily Covid-19 cases have reduced comparatively, a major chunk of the infections come from the rural areas of nine districts of Maharashtra

Even as the state’s daily Covid-19 cases have reduced comparatively, a major chunk of the infections come from the rural areas of nine districts of Maharashtra. The state added 9,361 fresh infections on Sunday, of which 5,194 come from the rural parts of Raigad, Ahmednagar, Pune, Solapur, Satara, Kolhapur, Sangli, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg districts. The state’s active case count was 132,241, while the state’s overall tally rose to 5,972,781. Mumbai reported 747 fresh Covid-19 infections and 19 deaths. The city’s active caseload was 18,591.

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These nine districts have been reporting around 50% of the state’s cases for some time now. State health department and health experts said that the viral activity works in a different manner and parts showing higher numbers will eventually go down. On Sunday, 761 cases were reported in Ratnagiri, 728 in Satara, 725 in Kolhapur rural, 643 in Raigad, 579 in Pune rural, 572 in Sangli rural, 549 in Ahmednagar rural, 329 in Sindhudurg and 308 in Solapur rural, the state data said. These areas reported 55.48% cases on Sunday.

Dr Subhash Salunkhe, former director-general of health services (Maharashtra) and advisor to the state government, on Covid-19 said that the pandemic does not behave in the same manner across areas. “Western Maharashtra places, particularly Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli, and Ratnagiri and Sindhdurg in the Konkan region, are not showing a distinct decline we are seeing in other parts of the state. The virus does not behave in the same manner across geographical limits. The virus could have entered late in these rural areas,” he said.

Besides these areas, the other major contributors remain Mumbai, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune city and Pimpri-Chinchwad. These areas clock around 25% of the state’s daily case count. On Sunday, MMR (excluding Mumbai) added 1,253 cases, while Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad added 553 cases. Collectively, Mumbai, MMR, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad contributed to 27.27% of the state’s cases on Sunday.

The case fatality rate (CFR) of the state has climbed in the past month as the state added over 21,000 fatalities in its data reconciliation process since May 21. A whopping 21,147 deaths have been added to the state’s tally in almost a month, which has taken the CFR from 1.54% on May 20 to 1.97% on Sunday. Between May 20 and June 20, 32,606 deaths were added, of which 21,147 were as part of the data-cleaning process. “Deaths have occurred in the second wave, but rather than looking at the absolute numbers, we must see that the CFR has remained under control. CFR was much lower than what we saw in the first wave,” said a health department official, who did not wish to be named.

The state added 415 deaths to the state’s progressive death tally on Sunday, besides the 190 deaths in the past 24 hours. Out of the 415 deaths, 164 occurred in Pune, 81 in Nashik, 59 in Ahmednagar, 25 in Thane, 20 in Ratnagiri, 12 in Aurangabad, 11 in Beed, 10 in Satara, seven in Buldhana, five in Akola, four each in Nagpur and Sangli, two each in Hingoli, Solapur and Wardha, one each in in Amravati, Jalna, Kolhapur, Latur, Parbhani, Washim and Yavatmal.