CM Uddhav Thackeray takes stock as fresh Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra dip to 174-day low

Maharashtra on Monday recorded its lowest one-day spike in Covid-19 cases in nearly six months as it added 4,505 fresh infections, taking its tally to 6,357,833

Maharashtra on Monday recorded its lowest one-day spike in Covid-19 cases in nearly six months (174 days) as it added 4,505 fresh infections, taking its tally to 6,357,833. The state had reported 3,663 cases on February 16. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray met the state’s Covid-19 task-force members to deliberate over further relaxations, including opening up malls, cinema halls, auditoriums, places of worship, and increased operational hours for restaurants and eateries. Besides that, CM discussed preparations for a possible third wave.

A statement from the Chief Minister’s Office said, “In the task force meeting, discussions were held on the possible third wave, the requirement of oxygen, increasing the pace of vaccination, boosting testing-tracking as well as on how to ease restrictions in the coming days, while maintaining caution, in other sectors.” (Bhushan Koyande/ HT)

The active case count in the state stood at 68,375 on Monday. The state also reported 68 deaths, pushing the toll to 134,064. Mumbai added 218 new cases, taking city’s tally to 737,715. Mumbai added three fatalities, pushing its toll to 15,954, and active cases were 4,599 on Monday.

Thackeray took stock of the Covid-19 situation and sought a view from experts on further unlocking in restrictions, senior officials said. Last week, minister Aaditya Thackeray had hinted that not just local trains, the state will look at easing curbs for people, who have taken both jabs, in other activities as well.

A statement from the Chief Minister’s Office said, “In the task force meeting, discussions were held on the possible third wave, the requirement of oxygen, increasing the pace of vaccination, boosting testing-tracking as well as on how to ease restrictions in the coming days, while maintaining caution, in other sectors.” The task force has been directed to prepare rules based on the instructions given by the CM, the statement added. A decision on further easing of relaxations are expected this week.

An official said, “The task force has recommended caution as reopening now could hasten the third wave. The relaxations, if they are announced next, will be for double-vaccinated people in the first phase. The idea is to postpone the reopening of all activities for everybody. At the same time, they have recommended speeding up the vaccination drive.”

A task-force member said that there was a discussion on whether malls should be allowed to reopen only after all the mall employees have been fully vaccinated. “Besides that, for extending restaurant timings, it was suggested that the staff should be fully vaccinated at the earliest,” said the member who attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, state health department officials have partially attributed the decrease in daily numbers to lower tests. In the last 24 hours, the state tested 157,175 samples and had a positivity rate of 2.86%. State health department officials said as the tests have gone down by around 40,000 owing to the weekend, the number of cases have dipped correspondingly.

Maharashtra is seeing a dip in emergence of Covid-19 cases on a weekly basis between May and August. As per the data analysed, the dip in state’s cases between May and June was 75.88%, while it dipped by 35.35% between June and July. Between July and August, it saw a decrease of 28.32%.

Maharashtra added 95,108 fresh cases between June 1 and June 7, which dropped to 61,489 between July 1 and 7-- drop of 35%. Mumbai on the other hand saw a dip of 33.34% during the same period as it added 4,056 new cases between July 1 and 7. In the first seven days of August, the state added 44,075 new infections, while Mumbai added 2718, a drop of 28.32% and 32.99%, respectively.