Maha Covid tally up to 230,599; MMR accounts for major share

Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 6,875 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 230,599. The active cases in the state now stand at 93,652. The state also reported

Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 6,875 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 230,599. The active cases in the state now stand at 93,652. The state also reported 219 new fatalities, pushing the toll up to 9,667.

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Mumbai recorded 1,268 new cases and 68 fatalities, which took its tally to 89,124 and toll to 5,132. The active cases in Mumbai stand at 23,785.

Pune, meanwhile, continued to record more than 1,000 new cases daily, with 1,130 fresh cases taking the city’s tally to 25,758. It also recorded 18 fatalities on Thursday as its toll rose to 814. Pune’s adjoining Pimpri-Chinchwad recorded 413 new cases. Nashik city recorded 173 cases, while Jalgaon district recorded 110 new infections, 147 cases were reported from Pune district and 122 from Aurangabad city.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), excluding Mumbai, continued to contribute a chunk of the daily cases, with 40.96% of the total cases recorded in the state. Kalyan-Dombivli recorded 743 fresh infections on Thursday, Thane city 369, Navi Mumbai 251, Thane district 285, Ulhasnagar 171, Mira-Bhayander, Vasai-Virar 222, Raigad 274, Panvel 193. Bhiwandi-Nizampur and Palghar recorded 50 and 49 new cases respectively.

The region has so far recorded 1,786 fatalities.

The MMR includes Thane district, Thane city, Kalyan-Dombivli, Navi Mumbai, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Mira-Bhayander, Palghar and Vasai-Virar.

According to the state health department’s daily bulletin, till June 1, cases in MMR were 12,160. The cases shot up over four times in one month to 49,943 on July 1. During this period, the state government had started its ‘Mission Begin Again’ and provided several relaxations, including freeing up movement of people, the opening of businesses, industries, shops, etc.

Amid the rise in the number of cases in MMR, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with commissioners of civic bodies in the region and termed the situation a “concern”. This was Thackeray’s second interaction with the civic chiefs in under two weeks.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the health infrastructure in many cities in MMR, Thackeray has directed their civic chiefs to follow the example of Mumbai and ramp up health facilities for Covid-19 cases. The CM, during a video conference with civic chiefs of eight municipal corporations in MMR on Thursday, has asked to set up field hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients and suspected contacts on an urgent basis.

While the number of patients in Mumbai is steady for the last few weeks, it’s on the rise in other eight municipal corporations in the MMR. In some of the corporation areas, the case fatality rate (CFR) too is high. As of July 6, Thane cases rose to 9,300 and reported 243 deaths with the rise of percentage in state tally of cases to 5.67%, from 5.35% on June 8. During the same period, Kalyan Dombivli’s share rose to 5.12% from 2.13%, while Mira-Bhayandar rose to 2.3% from 1.07% in terms of positive cases. The CFR in Bhiwandi on July 6 was as high as 5.23%, though other corporations in the area could bring it down to register below the state average.

Among all municipal corporations in MMR, KDMC is second highest in daily cases after Mumbai and has reported more than 600 cases a day over the past few weeks. The corporation has not been able to augment its health infrastructure to take up the additional projected load of cases during monsoon.

While addressing the commissioners, Thackeray said that some civic bodies in the MMR could not set up jumbo facilities like those established in Mumbai. “We have been pressing for jumbo facilities to tackle the projected rise in cases over the last four months. The number of cases is expected to rise during monsoon, but the civic bodies in the rest of Mumbai have been lagging behind. They should start setting up field hospitals on a war footing with the help of industries, companies, and institutions if needed,” he said.

CM’s principal advisor Ajoy Mehta said that the spike in the cases in rest of the MMR is a matter of concern for not only the state, but also for the country. He asked civic chiefs for aggressive tracing, institutional isolation and ramping up facilities for Covid and non-Covid patients. He too asked civic bodies to seek help from the companies and industries in augmentation of the medical facilities.

Thackeray has also directed them to ensure that facilities are well-equipped with a drainage system, toilets, drinking water besides the facilities of ICU and dialysis. The CM also asked them to ensure to stock adequate medicines to cope with the potential surge in cases during monsoon. He has also directed corporations for the community participation in their fight against the pandemic. The corporations have also been asked to constitute surveillance committees, involving NGOs and local youths, who can help them in surveillance and treatment.

Navi Mumbai municipal commissioner Annasaheb Misal said, “We already have ramped up our infrastructure and have set up a 1,200-bed facility at the exhibition centre. Our testing rate is 16,608 per million, much above the Central government’s parameters. This has helped us in improving the doubling rate to 33 days from 6 days a few weeks ago.”

Meanwhile, the state also recorded 4,067 patients discharged, taking the total number of patients who have recovered to 1,27,259. The recovery rate in the state stands at 55.19%.

The state has so far tested 12,22,487 samples and has a positivity rate of 18.86%, the state health department data said. Currently, 6,49,263 people are in home quarantine and 48,191 people are in institutional quarantine, it added.