After steady dip, Maharashtra braces for a surge in Covid cases as eateries reopen today

For an eighth consecutive day, Maharashtra on Sunday reported less than 20,000 Covid-19 infections, with 13,702 new cases taking the tally to 1,443,409.

For an eighth consecutive day, Maharashtra on Sunday reported less than 20,000 Covid-19 infections, with 13,702 new cases taking the tally to 1,443,409.

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However, despite the dip after the surge in the first three weeks of September, state officials said they were wary about a possible rise in cases over the next couple of weeks. “After inter-district movement was allowed from September 2, there was a sudden spike in the first two weeks. A similar spike is projected over the next couple of weeks after restaurants resume operations from today and running of more local trains [for essential services workers]. However, it would not be as high as last month,” an official said, on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, Union railway minister Piyush Goyal, during a press conference in Mumbai, said that they have not received a proposal from the state government to start local trains for all. There is a rising demand from political parties and various other sectors for the operation of local trains in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). “It is a decision to be taken by the state government. Resuming local trains is under consideration, but it may take a few more weeks,” said a state official. State tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray, in an earlier interview to HT, had said local trains could resume from mid-October.

The state on Sunday also reported 326 fatalities, taking the toll to 38,084. Mumbai clocked 2,109 fresh cases and reported 48 deaths on Sunday, taking the tally to 213,652 and toll to 9,108. Of the 326 deaths, 214 were from the past two days, 55 from the past week and 57 from the period before it, the state health department has said.

The state has reported a steady decline in cases over the past two weeks. The decline has been attributed to concentrated efforts in the districts where cases were high. Apart from Mumbai; Pune, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Nashik, Solapur and Jalgaon were top contributors to cases in the state. Barring Mumbai, other districts have been able to bring down the daily infection considerably. In Pune, the daily caseload dropped to 2,396 on October 3, from 4,664 four weeks ago on September 5, while Nagpur saw a drop to 631 cases, from 787 during this period. Kolhapur, Solapur and Sangli reported a decline in four weeks to 315, 338 and 205 cases from 714, 703 and 888 cases respectively.

“We continuously focused on these districts with high cases over the past few weeks by closely monitoring with officials at district level. We expect the ‘My Family, My Responsibility drive’, which emphasises on behavioural communication, to help us further in early detection and early treatment, resulting in keeping mortality in check. We have also increased the daily testing to 90,000 a day, from 61,000 a few weeks ago. In Pune, our per million test rate has reached 96,000, which is even more than Mumbai’s. All these factors have helped us in bringing the growth rate down,” said state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate.

Dr Awate said that they expect daily infections to drop to the level of 6,000 cases by December-end. “Despite the unlocking rolled out this month, we expect cases to see gradual decline over the next few days after the peak reported in the past few weeks. Herd immunity, antibodies immunities developed and awareness among people are the contributing factors resulting in the decline. We have reached the juncture where the daily addition of cases is manageable,” he said.

The growth rate as well as doubling rate of cases in most of the districts has improved over the past few weeks. Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation leads the chart of doubling rate with 85.47 days, while it’s fastest in Chandrapur district at 19.91 days, according to the daily report prepared by a group headed by Mumbai University economist Neeraj Hatekar.

State’s recovery rate improved to 79.64%, after 15,048 new recoveries. After the recovery of 11,49603 patients, the number of active patients dropped to 255, 281. Maharashtra has 2,209,696 people under home quarantine and 27,939 institutionally quarantined. 75,908 tests were conducted in last 24 hours, with a positivity rate of 18.05%.