8,308 fresh cases as Maha tally nears 3L

Maharashtra recorded more than 8,000 fresh Covid-19 cases for the second consecutive day on Friday, as the state’s coronavirus tally neared the three-lakh mark.

Maharashtra recorded more than 8,000 fresh Covid-19 cases for the second consecutive day on Friday, as the state’s coronavirus tally neared the three-lakh mark. The state reported 8,308 infections, pushing up its count to 292,589, according to the state health department bulletin, which said active cases stood at 120,480. On Thursday, the state had recorded its sharpest single-day spike of 8,641 cases. The state’s toll rose to 11,452, after 258 deaths were reported in 24 hours.

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Maharashtra is likely to cross the three-lakh cases mark over the weekend, which would mean the state has reported its last one lakh cases in 14 or 15 days. The virus tally crossed the two-lakh mark on July 4, 22 days after the state had breached the one-lakh mark on June 12. The first lakh cases were reported in 96 days.

Mumbai, meanwhile, inched closer to the one-lakh cases mark, with a rise of 1,214 cases on Friday. The city’s tally stands at 99,164, of which 23,948 are active cases. Mumbai’s death toll rose by 62 to 5,585.

A study published in Lancet, a global health journal, has placed Maharashtra, among the nine states that have high vulnerability to the Covid-19 pandemic. The study has found Maharashtra as the seventh-most vulnerable state across India in the vulnerability index. Madhya Pradesh tops the list, followed by Bihar and Telangana.

The study has rated the vulnerabilities of the states to the pandemic on a scale of zero to one, measured using 15 indicators across five domains — socio-economic vulnerability, demographic vulnerability, housing and hygiene conditions, availability of health care and epidemiological factors.

Although social, demographic, economic, health, and epidemiological data is available in India, district-level data is not available yet. So the researchers have used National Family Health Survey 2015-16, Census of India 2011, Rural Health Statistics 2018 and National Health Profile 2019 data.

“Our index aims to help planners and policy makers effectively prioritise regions for resource allocation and adopt risk mitigation strategies for better preparedness and responses to the Covid-19 epidemic,” Rajib Acharya and Akash Porwal from Population Council, New Delhi, have said in the study.

Meanwhile, state health minister Rajesh Tope said the health infrastructure needs to be augmented only in cities of Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), as in the rest of the state there is no shortage of beds. “We have built field hospitals in Mumbai and are building more in MMR cities as there is a shortage of ICU beds. Thane city has been taken care of, but the situation is different in Kalyan-Dombivli, Ambernath, Badlapur and Bhiwandi as the health infrastructure there is still not sufficient,” he said. “A multi-speciality hospital is needed in these areas. I have been speaking about this to the chief minister [Uddhav Thackeray] and in the cabinet. We are planning a jumbo facility with 1,000 beds with oxygen supply and 350 ICU beds. It will be completed in a months’ time.”

Nine cities of MMR, including Mumbai, have recorded 174,715 cases, which contribute to 59.71% of the state’s tally.

In Mumbai, however, the rise of cases has plateaued. The highest single-day spike this month has been 1,552 on July 2. Mumbai had reported its sharpest 24-hour spike of 2,077 cases on June 27.

“Everybody agrees that Mumbai is on a plateau. Cases are not coming down, but they are not rising either… We have kept our finger crossed,” said a senior BMC official, requesting anonymity.

The rise in cases in the other cities of MMR is massive, with most civic bodies re-imposing lockdown restrictions in a bid to flatten the case curve. Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Bhiwandi-Nizampur and Navi Mumbai have extended lockdown restrictions until July 19, while Ulhasnagar and Panvel have curbs till July 22 and July 24 respectively.

Along with spike in cases, the state is also recording rise in fatalities on a daily basis. In the past 17 days, the state has recorded 3,446 Covid-19 deaths.

With 11,452 deaths, the case fatality rate (CFR) of the state stands at 3.91%. It is the second highest in India after Gujarat, where the CFR is 4.59% with 2089 deaths (45,481 cases) till Thursday, according to the statistics shared by the state medical education department.

Maharashtra, however, has highest number of deaths in the country.

To bring down Covid deaths, the government has started conducting rapid antigen tests in containment zones. These tests provide report in around 30 minutes. “If test report comes negative and the patient has Covid symptoms, then we also conduct RT-PCR test to confirm whether the patient is free from Covid. This helps in providing early treatment to patients, ultimately reducing Covid deaths,” said Tope.

The number of recovered patients in Maharashtra has also risen to 160,357, after 2,217 recovered and discharged from various hospitals across the state on Friday. The recovery rate of the state has improved to 54.81%. The national recovery rate stands at 63.33%.

The state has so far tested 1,484,630 people and has a positive rate of 19.7%.