August set to be worst Covid-19 month; Maha tally is 535,601 | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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August set to be worst Covid-19 month; Maha tally is 535,601

By, Mumbai
Aug 12, 2020 12:39 AM IST

Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 11,088 Covid-19 cases, taking the tally to 535,601, of which 148,553 (27.73%) were active infections, state health department data revealed.

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HT Image

In the first 11 days of this month, the state has reported over 1 lakh cases (113,483), translating to 10,316 infections per day on an average. The state saw 102,172 cases in June, 57,157 in May, 10,196 in April and 302 in March. July saw 247,392 infections. The numbers suggest that August will likely record the wort numbers, after it already registered highest single-day spikes in cases and deaths at 12,822 and 390 respectively.

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The death toll of the state went up to 18,306 after 256 fatalities were reported, of which, 211 were reported in the past 48 hours, another 34 were from the past week, while the remaining 11 deaths were before past week, health officials said.

Meanwhile, health minister Rajesh Tope said the state government will soon formulate a standard operating procedure and decide about opening gyms. He said the state will also cap prices of sanitisers and masks in the next four days. “SOP for gyms will be formulated and decision to allow gyms will soon be taken by the state government,” Tope said. “To bring relief to the people, Maharashtra will be the first state to cap prices of sanitisers and masks based on their quality. The decision to this effect will be taken in the next four days, after which sanitizers and masks cannot be sold at exorbitant prices,” he said.

Last week, Tope had said that cases would rise and hit a plateau by mid-August. “In my view, the peak has arrived and cases will continue to rise by another 15 days. We are expecting a plateau or flattening of the curve somewhere around August 15. Once we hit the plateau, cases will start declining,” Tope told HT.

Dr Pradeep Vyas, health secretary, said the situation was under control and improving. He said that the patient-growth rate was also reducing. “The situation is absolutely under control and improving as the doubling rate of cases in the state has increased to 31.25 days (on August 8) from 21.2 days on June 30 and 16.29 days on May 31,” Dr Vyas told HT.

The patient growth rate has also reduced to 2.24% (On August 8) from 3.32 on June 30 and 4.35 on May 30. This is because the rate at which new cases are growing has slowed down and reduced, he added.

Officials, however, said that the area where the government needs to focus more is tracing maximum contacts within 72 hours. The same was also pointed out by Lav Agrawal, joint secretary, Union health ministry, while reviewing pandemic situation along with the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray last week, said an official from the health department.

Agrawal had asked government officials to focus more on containment zones and house-to-house surveys. He has also said that if a patient tested positive, then 80% of his contacts need to be traced within 72 hours and also need to be tested within this period.

Like surge in cases, the state is also struggling with high number of casualties. Maharashtra still has highest number of deaths across states in the country.

As many as 3,312 deaths have been reported in the past 11 daysm as against 6,988 deaths in July, 5,638 in June, 2,286 deaths in May, 449 in April and 10 deaths in March, when pandemic was started.

With 18,306 deaths, the case fatality rate (CFR) of the state was recorded as 3.42% on Tuesday. It continued to be second-highest in the country after Gujarat, where the CFR was 3.71% with 2,672 deaths (72,031 cases) till Monday, according to statistics shared by the state medical education department

Mumbai has maintained a sort of stability in daily fresh cases with 917 cases reported on Tuesday. Its case count stood at 125,224. Of them, active cases were 18,887.

Mumbai has reported highest single-day spike with 2,077 cases on June 27.

City’s toll stood at 6,893 after 48 deaths were reported in a day.

Pune again contributed maximum daily infection, as it recorded 928 cases, only 11 cases more than Mumbai, on Tuesday. Its tally stood at 72,640 cases. Pimpri-Chinchwad, satellite city in Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR), recorded 747 cases, third-highest contributor in the state. Its tally stood at 29,910.

On Tuesday, the state conducted 64,058 tests and positivity rate recorded was 18.87%. Till date, 2,837,578 tests have been conducted.

Dr Vyas also informed that the number of tests went up to 20,472 against per million population, as against 16,002 tests on July 31 and 6,897 tests on June 30.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Faisal is with the political team and covers state administration and state politics. He also covers NCP.

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