4 months of lockdown in Maharashtra: Ground reality

Even after four months of lockdown with relaxations in curbs, the spread of Sars-Cov-2 is not showing any signs of slowing down in Maharashtra, even though the situation

Even after four months of lockdown with relaxations in curbs, the spread of Sars-Cov-2 is not showing any signs of slowing down in Maharashtra, even though the situation seems to be improving in Mumbai.

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The Maharashtra government started a gradual lockdown since mid-March, after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Pune on March 9. It announced lockdown across the state, sealing district and state boundaries, a day before the nationwide lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24. However, the numbers of cases and fatalities are rising to record highs, after the curbs were lifted to boost the state economy. According to the data, nearly 78% of the total cases have been recorded after the lockdown restrictions were lifted by the state government. State officials said the number of patients and toll could have been more had it not been for timely lockdown, travel restrictions, social distancing, and other interventions.

The state on Thursday reported 9,895 new Covid-19 infections — its second-highest single-day spike — taking the tally to 347,502. Maharashtra has 140,092 active cases with 194,253 recoveries. The state’s recovery rate improved to 55.9% after 6,484 more patients recovered in the past 24 hours.

Mumbai reported 1,245 new infections and 55 deaths, taking the caseload to 1,05,923 and toll to 5,930. With 298 fatalities reported in 24 hours, the state toll was pushed to 12,854.

State health department officials said the surge in cases was expected to continue through August, and the cases can plateau in September. Health department officials also dismissed that Maharashtra has reached the community transmission stage.

LOCK, UNLOCK

The Maharashtra government announced a gradual relaxation in curbs from June, as part of its Mission Begin Again. It provided relaxations for outdoor physical activities, including running, jogging, cycling, among others, from June 3. Subsequently, it opened up market areas, shops, except malls and shopping centres, from June 5. It also allowed private offices to open up with 10% of its staff from June 8.

Maharashtra recorded 74,647 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 2,855 fatalities during the lockdown between March 24 and June 3. Since the relaxations were gradually lifted, while keeping the lockdown intact, the state has registered a whopping 262,747 cases and 9,699 fatalities between June 3 and July 22.

Anup Kumar Yadav, health commissioner of Maharashtra, said the lockdown helped ready the infrastructure needed to tackle the cases. “The lockdown has been beneficial not just in terms of low numbers, but it has given time to prepare the health infrastructure needed to tackle the cases that come after the restrictions are lifted,” Yadav said. He added that restrictions were lifted to restart economic activities as Covid-19 will not go away so soon.

In the past one month, the active case count has gone up in semi-urban areas, rural areas and satellite towns in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The local administrations have resorted to stringent curbs on movement of people and introduced lockdowns. “Municipal commissioners or district collectors can decide on lockdown. It has proven to be an effective way to contain the spread. The effects of such limited period lockdown show after 10 to 15 days,” a senior bureaucrat said.

In Mumbai, the daily average rise in cases has been 1,200 for the past couple of weeks. State authorities said lower positivity rate amid more testing is a good sign. Dr Om Shrivastav, an infectious diseases specialist and a member of state government-appointed task force on Covid-19, argued that higher number of cases should not be the parameter for assessment. “Instead of going into the numbers, we should look at the case fatality rate (CFR), which is lower in the state (at 3.72%). We have done quite well in the lockdown period and later too. Dharavi has emerged as a model for the entire country and even state on how to contain the spread,” Dr Shrivastav said, adding that the Dharavi model can be replicated elsewhere in the state.

the control

On May 1, the overall positivity rate in the state was 7.51%, which doubled in a month to 14.84% on June 1. The positivity rate has increased to 20.01% on July 22. In other words, seven out of every 100 samples were turning out to be positive on May 1, which climbed to nearly 15 samples on June 1.

Experts said high positivity rate is a reflection of the increase in the prevalence of the virus. However, state health department officials differed. They said a higher strike rate in tests was a result of targeted testing.

The positivity rate in most days of July has been between 22% and 25%. The state has been conducting an average of 35,000 tests for the past few days. Maharashtra has been seeing over 8,000 cases daily for the past seven days, including 10,576 new cases on July 22.

“The decision to unlock activities in the state was taken consciously. It was made keeping the economy in mind. How long can a lockdown last and at what cost? Initially, the industries, shops and businesses were allowed in areas that did not have a high number of cases. Gradually, the state decided to extend it to Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Pune districts as well areas that see a major chunk of business activities. We had anticipated that the cases would rise once the restrictions are lifted and that has happened. However, things are not out of control,” a senior state bureaucrat said requesting anonymity.

Following the unlocking of activities, the number of daily cases shot up in parts of MMR, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad and Solapur districts. “There are no projections, but looking at the current trend, the cases are expected to rise till August, after which we can probably see a plateau. In Mumbai, it is expected to happen earlier, as the cases are not growing at that speed now,” Yadav said.

While Kerala became the first state in the country to announce that it has reached the community transmission stage, the Maharashtra health department has denied it. “We are not in the community transmission stage. The numbers are growing, but are not multiplying, which happens in that stage,” Yadav said. Dr Shrivastav said people must continue to adopt measures they did during lockdown. “We need to make sure that we don’t lose the advantage we had during the lockdown.”