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Maharashtra may reach 3 lakh active Covid-19 cases by April, says health secretary | 10 points
The state is aiming to inoculate 3 lakh people daily, as the number of active cases in the state is on the rise and will cross the 2 lakh-mark soon, given the positivity rate.
With the present positivity rate, Maharashtra's active Covid-19 caseload may reach the three lakh-mark by the first week of April, Maharashtra health secretary Pradeep Vyas said on Thursday, as the state breached all past records of single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic in the last year and reported 25,833 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday. State health minister Rajesh Tope said the state is facing the second peak of the pandemic.
Here are 10 things to know about Maharashtra’s current Covis-19 situation
> Maharashtra at present has 1,66,353 active Covid-19 cases, contributing a major percentage to India’s active cases of 2,52,364.
> According to the Union health ministry’s data on Thursday, Maharashtra accounted for 63.21 per cent of the daily new cases.
> Before Thursday, Maharashtra’s single-day spike never crossed the 25,000-mark. On September 11, 2020, there were 24,886 daily Covid-19 cases.
> Nine of 10 districts in India with the highest number of active cases are in Maharashtra, including Pune (32,359), Nagpur (21,496), Mumbai (15,410), Thane (14,644), Nashik (9,821), Aurangabad (9,621), Jalgaon (4,610), Nanded (4,059) and Amravati (3,697). The district which is not in Maharashtra is Bengaluru Urban with 7,344 active cases.
> Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday held a virtual meeting with divisional commissioners and asked them to ensure that restrictions that have already been announced are being implemented strictly, and there are adequate tracking and testing.
> Health secretary Pradeep Vyas said that if the rise in daily cases continues, then there could be three lakh active cases in the state in the first week of April, news agency PTI reported.
> The state is focusing to speed up the vaccination drive. Health minister Rajesh Tope said the government is aiming to inoculate three lakh people daily.
> The health minister said the state is moving towards another peak of infections, but there is no need to panic, news agency PTI reported.
> In the second surge of Covid-19 in the state, 95 per cent of patients are asymptomatic.
> As far as lockdown is concerned, Nagpur is under a strict lockdown from March 15 to March 21. Other restrictions like night curfew have been imposed in several other districts like Pune, Latur etc.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a review meeting with the chief ministers on Wednesday and encouraged the states to create district-level micro-containment zones. Maharashtra has banned social, political, religious gathering across all districts in February. As imposing lockdown now depends on the local administrations, Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar said a night curfew may be imposed in the city.
(With agency inputs)
