Case spike in rural areas catches Maha’s eye; tally rises to 104,568

Maharashtra on Saturday reported 3,427 more infections to take the tally to 1,04,568, as the government looks at strengthening its focus on rural areas after a spike

Maharashtra on Saturday reported 3,427 more infections to take the tally to 1,04,568, as the government looks at strengthening its focus on rural areas after a spike in numbers.The state, which had breached the 1 lakh-cases mark on Friday, has recorded over 3,000 fresh infections for four consecutive days.

HT Image

With 113 more deaths, the state toll reached 3,830, although 73 of them were from the past two days, while the remaining casualties were between May 27 and June 10.

Mumbai, the worst-affected Indian city, saw 1,380 new infections and 69 more deaths, taking the tally and toll to 56,831 and 2,113 respectively. Over the past week, the state has recorded 21,600 cases and 861 deaths – an average of 3,086 cases and 123 deaths per day — till Saturday. Saturday saw the third highest single-day jump in cases.

Meanwhile, even as Mumbai could restrict the virus spread to some extent, the spike in caseload in rural parts and districts like Solapur, Aurangabad, Yavatmal and Jalgaon remained a cause of concern for the state administration. The district administrations have been directed to ramp up health infrastructure, so as to contain the spread.

Solapur’s case count rose to 1,620 on Friday from 522 on May 21, a day before the lockdown was relaxed substantially by reducing areas under red zones. Aurangabad’s tally rose to 1,126 from 457 on May 21, while Jalgaon’s count went up to 1,540 from 331. In Akola and Dhule, the numbers rose to 979 and 353 from 344 and 95 respectively.

Mumbai accounted for 63.73% of the state’s new cases on May 14, 56.47% on May 28, 49.06% on June 4 and 39.10% on Friday.

“We are implementing the Dharavi pattern in districts like Aurangabad to bring mortality rate down and effective tracing of patients. Thermal scanners and oximeters are being aggressively used in these districts that have witnessed a rising number of cases. Asha workers and other health workers are being roped in to form surveillance squads for tracing and testing. By doing this, the vulnerable and patients with comorbidities are traced, helping us in checking the mortality rate,” said Dr Sadhana Tayade, director, health services.

The Central government on Thursday had expressed concerns over the high mortality rate and pointed at the possibility of a shortage of ICU beds in a few districts and cities of Maharashtra. The state authorities have directed the Mumbai corporation for the strict acquisition of beds in private hospitals, while district collectors in other districts are asked to chalk out plans for the addition of beds, anticipating the potential growth of cases in the near future.

“Barring Mumbai, we have been able to cope with the demand for ICU beds. While acquiring additional stock of ventilators, we have also asked district authorities to trace vulnerable patients early so that they would not need to put on ventilators,” said an official from the state government.

The recovery rate improved to 47.2% from 26.25% on May 20, as the number of recovered patients reached 49,346 on Saturday. The national recovery rate on Saturday was 49.95%. The mortality rate was 3.7% against the national rate of 2.88%.

Of the 113 deaths reported on Saturday, 87 are from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), including 69 from Mumbai, eight from Navi Mumbai. Ten deaths were in Pune and eight in Solapur. 65 of the people who died were above 60 years of age and 83 of them had comorbidities.

A total of 16,464 samples have been tested in the past 24 hours, with a positivity rate of 15.74%. Currently, 5,83,303 people are under home quarantine.

Out of Mumbai’s 69 deaths, 47 patients had co-morbidities, whereas, seven deaths were below 40 years of age, 37 deaths were above 60 years of age, and 25 were between 40 to 60 years.

As per BMC data, 795 patients recovered and were discharged on Saturday as the total discharges have gone up to 25, 947. The total number of active patients in the city stands at 28, 682.

There were signs of improvement in one of the most vulnerable areas of the city, Dharavi, which recorded no deaths and only 17 cases on Saturday. Dharavi’s case count has reached 2,030.

Meanwhile, BMC said that ICMR has approved its technique of plasma therapy to check for the “right quality plasma” with adequate levels of antibodies to treat Covid-19 patients as per the protocols. BMC-run Kasturba, Nair and KEM have got an approval for trial by the ICMR. The technique called Chemiluminescent Immunoassay (CLIA) can be used to test the plasma from a recovered patient for the quantum of IgG antibodies. In a statement issued on Saturday, BMC said, “Only a donor with adequate antibodies is selected, which allows quality plasma to be given to the patient. This will help to treat patients more effectively.”

As part of its monsoon preparedness, the BMC’s insecticide department has destroyed over 1.08 lakh breeding sites of the aedes aegypti mosquito, known to spread dengue, and 333 breeding sites of the anopheles mosquito, which is the malaria vector. This drive took place between January this year till now.