Maharashtra reports fresh spike of 9,855 Covid-19 cases, highest in over 4 months

Earlier in the day, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced that Maharashtrians coming from Brazil will have to mandatorily undergo seven days of quarantine.

With 9,855 new cases in the last 24 hours, Maharashtra’s Covid-19 tally went up to 2,179,185 on Wednesday, according to figures released by the state health department. This is the highest single-day jump since October 17 last year. Of the total new cases, 1,121 came from Mumbai. The western state’s positivity rate has climbed to 13.2 per cent.

Mumbai: A health worker takes swab sample of a resident for Covid-19 testing in a housing society, amid a surge in coronavirus cases, at Nehru Nagar in Mumbai, Thursday (PTI Photo)

The toll from the viral disease has gone up to 52,280 with 42 deaths reported since Tuesday, pushing the state’s cases fatality rate to 2.40 per cent. Of these, 11,487 people died of the coronavirus disease in Mumbai. Maharashtra has reported a total of 2,043,349 recoveries from the infection and the state’s recovery rate stands at 93.77 per cent.

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As many as 857 new cases were detected in Pune municipal limits, taking the tally to 2,11,256 while in Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad and Amravati municipal corporation areas 924, 593, 449 and 483 new Covid-19 cases were reported respectively.

According to Maharashtra health ministry’s dashboard, a total of 3,60,500 people are in home quarantine while 3,701 are undergoing institutional quarantine in the state.

As cases in Maharashtra are rising by the day, several other states have made it mandatory for travellers from there to carry a negative Covid-19 report. The state authorities have also ordered a lockdown in districts contributing to record numbers. While Amravati is under a complete lockdown, night curfew or weekend lockdown has been imposed in some other districts.

Earlier in the day, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced that Maharashtrians coming from Brazil will have to mandatorily undergo seven days of quarantine, irrespective of whether they have a Covid-19 negative report or not. On testing negative, passengers will be allowed to go home and stay in home quarantine. However, if they test Covid-19 positive after seven days, they will be admitted at GT Hospital or at three listed private hospitals in Mumbai.

Till now passengers coming from the United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa and Middle East were following this directive.

As cases in the state began to witness an upward trend since last month, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had warned of another lockdown if people fail to abide by Covid-19 norms.