Active Covid-19 cases increase in Maharashtra, inches closer to 1 lakh mark after dip last month

Active Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra are on the rise again with cases crossing the 90,000 mark on Sunday. The state’s active cases had dipped to 78,272 earlier this month. There are now 90,997 active Covid-19 cases in the state.

Pune district continues to have the highest active cases with 19,658 cases, followed by Thane district and Mumbai with 16338 and 15610 active Covid-19 cases.

Maharashtra added 5,544 fresh cases on Sunday which took the tally to 1,820,059. The state also reported 85 deaths on Sunday, taking the toll past 47,000 to 47,071, at a case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.59%. Of the 85 fatalities, 39 were in the past 48 hours, 25 in the past week and 21 before that, the state health department stated.

The state is expected to increase testing in the coming month to pick up any increase in spread of infection. The government is identifying ‘superspreaders’ in the population, or people who have maximum social contact in the community, and is testing such people on priority. These include bus conductors, street vendors, milkman etc who are likely to come in contact with 10-15 people daily due to the nature of their work.

Two weeks after Diwali (November 15) the state is yet to see any significant increase in Covid-19 cases. There was a fear among state health department officials that the viral infection could see a surge after Diwali as large crowds were seen during the festive season.

“There is no significant rise in cases yet, but we are ramping up testing. The district authorities have been directed to increase contact tracing as well,” health department officials said.