82 cases take Maha Covid-19 count to 302

Maharashtra’s coronavirus case count on Tuesday reached 302, highest in the country, after 82 new cases were reported.

Maharashtra’s coronavirus case count on Tuesday reached 302, highest in the country, after 82 new cases were reported.

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Of the 82 cases, 59 were recorded in Mumbai alone, taking the number of infected people in India’s worst-hit city to 151. Health minister Rajesh Tope, however, said the spike was because the results of tests conducted by the city’s private laboratories over the past four days were declared together on Tuesday.

Among the remaining cases, 13 are in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), five in Pune, three in Ahmednagar and two in Buldhana district. Significantly, test reports of 201 people across the state are still awaited, said the state health department.

The spike in Mumbai was registered a day after a few patients, who tested positive, were found to be from densely populated Worli-Koliwada, following which the state government has issued instructions to all authorities to take precautions to contain the spread.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said they are sealing areas where there are coronavirus patients, so as to curb the spread of the disease.

For Mumbai, the chief minister also directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to set up 227 flying squads that will conduct house-to-house inspection in each and every ward. The squad comprises a staffer each from the BMC, police, health and revenue departments.

“The squads will reach out to the members of the patient’s family and all those who came in contact with them. They will be asked if they have any symptoms of flu, such as cough, cold and fever, and for those having any of these symptoms, arrangements will be made for testing,” Thackeray said.

He also said that the entire Worli-Koliwada area has been declared as affected and movement of locals there have been restricted. “It will be difficult to contain if the epidemic spreads out to other such populated areas of the city. Mumbai is a capital and the situation here should be under control,” the chief minister said in a meeting held late on Monday evening at his official residence.

Tope said that there is nothing to panic as the spike in numbers is not of a day. “The number of 59 cases are an accumulation of test reports of the past four days of private laboratories, which was validated by the state laboratory,” said Tope.

As per the guidelines issued by the Central government, first ten test reports of a private laboratory need to be validated by the state-run laboratory, only after which the test reports of the private lab is considered as final. This is the reason the test reports of the past four days got accumulated, creating a picture of a spike in cases in Mumbai, said a senior health official, wishing not to be named.

At present, the state has a capacity of testing around 5,500 samples in a day. Of them, capacity of 13 government laboratories are of 2,300 samples per day and eight private laboratories have capacity of testing 2,800 samples per day, informed the health minister. He, however, stressed that there is no need to conduct sample testing at such a huge level, hence they are not using testing facilities at full capacity.

Meanwhile, a 49-year-old housekeeping employee of Saifee Hospital has tested positive for the infection (Sars-Cov-2). She came in direct contact with an asymptomatic patient, who was undergoing treatment at the hospital for a different illness. Currently, she is undergoing treatment at Kasturba Hospital. Around five of her family members have been home quarantined and their samples have been collected for analysis. When contacted, the hospital refused to make any comment.

Five close contacts of the 85-year-old surgeon, who died last week in Saifee, have also tested positive, including a house help. “They were earlier kept in home quarantine, but as their samples have tested positive, we have isolated them,” said a ward officer.

At Jaslok Hospital, where a nurse was earlier detected with coronavirus, around 150 medical staff, including doctors, have been home quarantined. Non-emergency services at the hospital have been stopped for 14 days.

On Tuesday, six more nurses were diagnosed with the disease at the hospital.

So far, 6,331 samples have been analysed in the state. The data given by the state government also states 23,913 people are in home quarantine and 1,434 are in institutional quarantine across Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, the shutdown declared by the chief minister on March 22 ended on Tuesday and in the past ten days, Maharashtra has got 228 new cases of novel coronavirus. Despite all the restrictions, the numbers are still rising and is likely to further rise, it is said. Moreover, the state government too believes that there could be a spike after the first week of April and they are trying to reduce the impact. Experts believe the state should increase its testing capacity and reach out to maximum people to contain the spread.

Two days before the Prime Minister declared a 21-day lockdown across the country, Thackeray had on March 22 declared imposing section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in urban areas of the state, restricting assembly of not more than five people at one place. He has also declared a shutdown of public transport services — Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST), state transport and private buses — after which Mumbai Metro and Monorail also announced closure of their services till the end of the month.

The staff in all the government offices was also reduced to 5% each day. The clampdown orders were issued to contain the outbreak but numbers are still going up.

The data provided by the state government indicates that in the past five days (since March 26), most of the new cases found are of non-travellers, which means the ones who have come in contact with a coronavirus-infected person, while in the past three days (from March 28), all the new patients of Covid-19 in the state are non-travellers, which is not a good sign. On March 28, 29, and 30, the number of positive cases found were 20, 27 and 22 respectively.

Senior officials in the government also confirmed that the state is expecting a spike in cases and are taking all the precautions to restrict it.

“It has been observed in other countries that after a gap of 30-35 days, the number of cases rises suddenly, hence a spike is very likely to happen in the second and third week of April month. We are taking all the precautions to minimise the rise,” said a senior official, requesting anonymity.

Tope also said that the number will increase, but not that high, like in other countries. “There is no community transmission in the state as of now. The number will increase , but not in the range like that of other countries, as we have taken precautionary measures in an advanced stage,” he said.

But experts insist that the state should increase its capacity for testing facilities. Dr Behram Pardiwala, internal medicine expert, Wockhart Hospital, said that the test, which should take 12-14 hours, is taking up to 4 days because of a backlog.

“With more number of tests the government can epistemologically see how the epidemic is spreading. For instance, Worli-Koliwada got few patients and we know there is a cluster there, so there is a need to test people there more actively,” he said.

Meanwhile, state home minister Anil Deshmukh has warned people against spreading any rumour owing it to be April Fool’s Day on Wednesday.

“Tomorrow’s April 1st. The annual tradition making an ‘April Fool’ of people has already begun on WhatsApp & social media. The state govt won’t allow anyone to spread rumours/panic on #Corona. I’ve instructed @MahaCyber1 to act swiftly & strongly such miscreants,” Deshmukh said in a tweet.