300,000 Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra

Maharashtra’s Covid-19 march on Saturday went past two bleak marks — 300,00 cases in India’s worst-hit state and 100,000 in capital city Mumbai — as it recorded

Maharashtra’s Covid-19 march on Saturday went past two bleak marks — 300,00 cases in India’s worst-hit state and 100,000 in capital city Mumbai — as it recorded 8,348 new infections. Saturday saw the state’s third consecutive day of 8,000 or more cases and its second-highest single-day spike, which took the tally to 300,937. Maharashtra had reported its first case 132 days ago on March 9.

HT Image

What makes the state’s march worrying is that there are no signs of it slowing down as data revealed that the average daily new cases and testing positivity rate continued to be on the rise. In fact, one of the more alarming trends is that nearly a quarter of all Covid-19 tests in the past week conducted in the state turned out positive —23.6% Also, while Maharashtra’s first 100,000 cases took 96 days (June 12) since the first was reported in the state , the next 200,000 took 22 days (July 4) and the latest 100,000 came in just 14 days .

If Maharashtra were a country, then according to worldometer.com data, it would have been the 10th to report over 300,000 cases.

As of now, Maharashtra has 12,3377 active cases and 165,663 recoveries, translating to a recovery rate of 55.05%. The state also reported 144 new fatalities, pushing the toll to 11,596 at a case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.85%. The national CFR is 2.53%. Of the 144 casualties reported on Saturday, 65 were in Mumbai, 32 in Pune district, eight in Vasai-Virar, six in Kalyan-Dombivli.

Mumbai, the worst-affected city in the state, crossed its grim mark of 100,000 cases in 130 days, with 1,186 infections added in the past 24 hours, taking the tally to 100,350. According to data, Mumbai accounts for 33.35% of the state cases. In the state’s first 200, 000 cases, Mumbai’s share stood at 41.61%, while in the first 100,000 it was 54.83%.

“The virus infection in the city has stabilised as its daily share in the state figure has dropped. I think the rest of MMR [Mumbai Metropolitan Region] has reached its peak, while the rest of Maharashtra’s [peak] has just begun. We expect the curve to stabilise in the rest of MMR within the next two weeks and in the rest of the state in the next four weeks,” Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the state-appointed taskforce for clinical management of critical patients.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, on Saturday, reviewed the pandemic situation in various districts and cities during his video conference with district collectors and divisional commissioners. The CM has asked district authorities to use the lockdown period for ramping up Covid-19 facilities that can tackle the surge in the cases. The district and civic administrations with a high number of cases have been asked to acquire 80% beds in private hospitals and set up field hospitals. Thackeray has also given a free hand to local authorities to impose stricter lockdown norms. Thackeray also asked local authorities to implement the Dharavi pattern to arrest the spread of the virus. “WHO has praised the Dharavi model, which can be replicated in other parts of the state. Great amount of transparency was maintained by the Mumbai civic body, without hiding any information. Other civic bodies should convince people by citing the Mumbai example to win over their trust,” he said. The CM also asked the civic and district chiefs to make sure that festive celebrations do not lead to more number of containment zones.

Cities like Kalyan-Dombivali, Bhiwandi, Mira-Bhayandar, Panvel, Nashik, Pune have been asked to focus on ramping up the health infrastructure to be able to take up the peak being reported there. “We have been closely monitoring these cities and districts to ensure more facilities in coming days,” said a top official privy to the developments. He said that though the number of beds with the facility of ventilators is more than 5,000 and only 540 of them have been occupied, there was a shortfall of beds with oxygen facilities where the patients are rising rapidly.

The civic bodies in rest of MMR have been directed to set up unified command centres so that the relatives of the patients get information about availability of beds, ambulances are made available at one contact point. They have also been instructed to ensure reports are made available in 24 hours and vehicles are acquired to use them as ambulances. The civic bodies have also been told to replicate Mission Save Human Life implemented in Mumbai in their respective cities to bring down the death rate.

CM’s principal advisor Ajoy Mehta said that the doubling of patients in 10 days in districts like Gadchiroli is worrisome and indicates spread in rural areas. He directed district authorities to ensure that spread is arrested in rural areas. “To keep the CFR in check, availability of oxygen is key. To trace the suspected contacts, activate vigilance committees at village level,” he said.

Ten districts with no testing labs have also been directed to set up ones at the earliest. State health minister Rajesh Tope asked local bodies to monitor charges levied by private hospitals by appointing monitoring committees.

Tope said, “We have assured districts with no labs with funding to set them up. There were 32,000 rapid antigen tests conducted in past few days, and 6,500 positive reports were added to the daily number of infections. The antigen tests are being done on the patients in containment zones and in the private hospitals before their admission to rule out the possibility of infection.”

The state has 740,884 people in home quarantine, while 45,552 are under institutional quarantine.