Covid-19 cases in urban parts of Maharashtra have again started rising, in comparison with its rural areas.
The caseload share of the urban parts of the state risen to 57.98% on October 18 from 51.6% a month ago.The urban parts, which are governed by 27 municipal corporations, recorded a major share of the caseload since the first case of Covid-19 was registered in the state on March 9. The urban areas accounted for 94.2% of the total cases (35,058) on June 18, though the share kept decreasing to mark 71.19% on July 18, 61.22% on August 18 and 51.59% on September 18. At the same time, the rural areas recorded a spike in the number of cases. By September, the urban parts came at par with the rural areas in terms of cases .
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Maharashtra’s population is almost equally distributed in urban and rural parts and the urban-rural population ratio during 2011 census was 45:55.
However, this month, the cases in urban parts have started increasing in comparison to the rural areas of the state. “For the first couple of months of the outbreak, most of the cases were from Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR) comprising 11 big cities. Gradually, the virus started spreading to other big cities, like Nagpur, Nashik,Aurangabad as people started moving from places recording more cases. By July, the rural part of the state witnessed a massive spread. In some districts, like Jalgaon and Ahmednagar, cases were more in rural parts than in the cities. The rural parts have lived their peak now and have started moving towards the baseline of the infection curve,” said an official from the health department.
Dr Gautam Bhansali, a consulting physician, said, “The peak in the rural areas has ended and the cases there are expected to keep reducing. Whereas the mobility in urban areas has increased after unlock and reverse migration to cities has begun. There is also an added confidence in the infrastructure in the cities that has led to more crowding there. On the contrary, in rural parts, there is fear among the people about the infection due to poor health facilities.”
{{/usCountry}}Dr Gautam Bhansali, a consulting physician, said, “The peak in the rural areas has ended and the cases there are expected to keep reducing. Whereas the mobility in urban areas has increased after unlock and reverse migration to cities has begun. There is also an added confidence in the infrastructure in the cities that has led to more crowding there. On the contrary, in rural parts, there is fear among the people about the infection due to poor health facilities.”
{{/usCountry}}However, the state authorities have expressed concerns over the complacency among people in cities. “Citizens are not following the protocol of social distancing and personal hygiene carefully. This is also a reason for high number of cases in MMR, which has gone up to 35% of state cases from 25% over last few months,” an official from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said.
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