Pune district is now the district in the country with the highest number of progressive positive, and active, Covid-19 cases.
Pune has overtaken Delhi on the Covid count, which, until now, had the most number of cases in the country.
On September 2, the district reported 3,614 new cases - Pune rural at 902, Pune municipal corporation (PMC) with 1,706 and 1,006 from the Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation (PCMC) - which puts the progressive positive count at 1,82,212 cases.
As of September 2, Delhi state reported 1,79,569 progressive cases, of which 1,58,586 have been declared cured and discharged.
The Delhi death toll is at 4,481 with an active case count of 16,502.
Mumbai has reported 1,48,569 progressive cases, of which 1,19,702 have recovered, with the death toll at 8,057 and the total number of active cases at 20,810.
Pune is also the only district in the country which has crossed the 50,000 mark in terms of active cases.
The district now has 54,760 active cases with 1,23,292 declared recovered.
Progressive cases include the total number of cases reported till date, including deaths, recovered and active cases; whereas active cases are those undergoing treatment for Covid-19 in hospitals, or are being isolated at home.
{{/usCountry}}Progressive cases include the total number of cases reported till date, including deaths, recovered and active cases; whereas active cases are those undergoing treatment for Covid-19 in hospitals, or are being isolated at home.
{{/usCountry}}A total of 39 Covid-19 related deaths were reported on Wednesday, which puts the death toll in the district at 4,160.
State director of health services Dr Archana Patil said, “There could be a possible data discrepancy, because the state health department forms its reports based on the data which is uploaded on the portal. Pune district may have not uploaded its discharges which is why the number of active cases is above 50,000. The portal is updated by the local government authorities, in Pune it is updated by the PMC, PCMC and the Zilla Parishad. The update is done as per the names so every discharge has to be done by identifying the person who has been discharged, which is not happening in case of Pune. There needs to be better contact tracing in the district and also better management of containment zones. However, it is also true that Pune is doing maximum testing in the country and so more cases are being identified.”
The BJP MLA from the from Shivajinagar constituency, Siddharth Shirole said, “After multiple demands to ramp up health infrastructure, we got two jumbo centres at COEP and Baner for Pune city, after which, we felt that the healthcare needs of critical care patients would be taken care of. However, as soon as the centres started multiple complaints from patients have started coming up. We have spent Rs 200 crore, which is public money, to develop these centres. I have written to the CM to intervene in this situation.”
The district’s health infrastructure is still struggling to cope with bed availability despite 1,200 beds added for critical care last week.
As of Wednesday, the district has 6,950 total vacant beds for Covid-19 patients, including 5,726 beds for isolation without oxygen; 1,002 isolation beds with oxygen; 162 ICU beds without ventilators; and 60 beds with ventilators.