State sees record one-day Covid spike

Maharashtra on Thursday recorded its highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 43,183 new infections

Maharashtra on Thursday recorded its highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 43,183 new infections. Similarly, Mumbai also added a record number of 8,646 new infections. The state’s active case count rose to 366,533, while its total rose to 2,856,163.

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As Maharashtra continues to record daily highs, in terms of new infections and fatalities, health minister Rajesh Tope said that the government, at this point, does not intend to go for a complete lockdown.

Instead, the restrictions will be made stricter, the minister said.

For a second day straight, the state added over 200 fatalities. Maharashtra saw 249 deaths—highest in a day since October 17—on Thursday, taking the death toll to 54,898. Nagpur city had the highest deaths with 50 fatalities and 10 from its rural areas. Aurangabad city reported 35 deaths.

Mumbai, meanwhile, added 18 fatalities, pushing its death toll to 11,708.

Mumbai’s active case count rose to 54,807. The state also reported recoveries of 32,641 patients on Thursday, taking the tally of recovered patients to 2,433,368.

In the last 24 hours, the state tested 183,198 samples, and had a positivity rate of 23.57%. The overall positivity rate of the state stood at 14.3%.

Pune, Nagpur, Nashik and Aurangabad districts have contributed majorly in Thursday’s surge. Pune district added 8,025 new cases, while Nagpur district added 3,696.

Nashik saw 3,039 new cases. Aurangabad district added 1,454 new cases. Tier-two cities and rural areas, too, have added considerable number of new cases on Thursday.

Nanded added 1,322 new cases, Ahmednagar added 1,279 new cases, Jalgaon district added 1,065 new infections, Nandurbar added 466, and Satara added 528. Meanwhile, districts and cities in Vidarbha region (excluding Nagpur district) added 3,553 new cases and 10 deaths.

Tope said that the state government will not immediately impose a complete lockdown.

“At the moment, the restrictions will be made stricter for a few days. The chief minister takes the final call on the lockdown. He consults health department, task force, and others. The pros and cons of a lockdown will be weighed. Depending on the situation, a call will be taken. Lockdown is always the last alternative... There is no separate lockdown plan for Mumbai. It is true that cases are increasing but the BMC has increased testing and vaccination. Besides that, there is no shortage of beds in the city as of now,” Tope said. The minister added that a lockdown would also be imposed if the bed capacity of the state is exhausted. However, there are several steps before reaching the ultimate step.

Senior bureaucrats, who are involved in the discussions, said that the government will gradually ramp up existing restrictions. The state government is deliberating on options including closing down markets, shops, malls, religious places theatres and even local trains in Mumbai, keeping it only for the workforce in the essential services category. A bureaucrat, who did not wish to be named, said that these options will be presented before chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in a day or two, when he reviews the situation.

“There are several options on the table right now. But we cannot take the last step of closing down as our first step. The idea is to gradually tighten the existing restrictions, while enforcing the existing ones. A lockdown is not an immediate option; we have to look at the economy and epidemic. We are not using the word lockdown now, instead, it should be looked at in terms of severity of the restrictions. In those terms, the restrictions that will follow could be between 25% and 50% of what were there last year,” he said, requesting anonymity.

The increasing death numbers are particularly a concern for state authorities. In the past two days, Maharashtra has added over 200 deaths daily. Health department officials and state Covid task force members attribute this to late detection and late admissions in hospitals. Maharashtra was seeing a decline in fatality figures since October 2020, which showed an upward trend in March. The state recorded 7,249 deaths in October, 3,240 deaths in November, 2,370 in December, 1,561 in January, 1,072 in February and 2,495 in March. Similarly, Mumbai has seen an increase in fatalities month-on-month. Mumbai saw 1,310 deaths in October, 645 in November, 232 in December, 236 in January, 123 in February, and 215 in March.

Tope said that people should get tested early and seek medical advice if there is any major health issue, such aa breathing difficulty, etc. “I appeal to the people that they should get tested if they have any symptoms. If any positive case has low oxygen saturation, then they must get admitted immediately. If they delay then they will reach the hospital in a bad condition. Because of such cases, the fatality rate is increasing,” he said. A senior health department official said that people get tested late despite experiencing symptoms. “We have seen many late presentations [at hospitals] and they fall die within 24 hours of admission. If we have to stop the deaths, early detection and paying attention to any symptom are two important steps.