Maha has hit Covid peak, says Tope; tally 383,723

Maharashtra on Monday reported 7,924 Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 383,723, as state health minister Rajesh Tope said the state has reached the peak of the

Maharashtra on Monday reported 7,924 Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 383,723, as state health minister Rajesh Tope said the state has reached the peak of the pandemic. The death toll of the state rose to 13,883, 6,000 of which were in July, after 227 more fatalities were reported in the past 24 hours. Active cases, too, reduced to 1,47,592, a drop of 1,009 from Sunday.

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“In my view, the peak has arrived and cases will continue to rise for another 15 days or so. We are expecting a plateau or flattening of the [case] curve somewhere around August 15. Once we hit the plateau, cases will start declining,” Tope told HT on Monday.

The state’s latest case spike came after 11 days of 8,000 or more new infections, including 10,576 on July 22. Till Sunday, the state had reported 9,000 new cases for four straight days.

The number of active cases, as of Monday, accounted for 38.46% of the state’s tally, according to the state health department.

The state is likely to cross the grim 4-lakh case mark on July 29 or 30, within 11-12 days after it crossed 3 lakh on July 18.

Maharashtra breached the 3-lakh mark 14 days after it went past 2 lakh. It took the state 96 days to cross 1 lakh cases on June 12 and 22 days to cross 2 lakh.

With 13,883 deaths, the case fatality rate (CFR) of the state was 3.62% on Monday. It continued to be second-highest in the country after Gujarat, where CFR is 4.17%, with 2,326 deaths (55,822 cases) till Sunday, according to statistics shared by the state medical education department.

Maharashtra still has the highest number of deaths in the country, while its test positivity rate was 19.92%, as against the 17.75% on June 27.

Meanwhile, Mumbai spike in cases remained stable with 1,021 infections reported on Monday, taking its count to 110,182. The city’s tally of active cases stood at 21,812. The city’s toll stood at 6,132, with 39 deaths reported in a day.

The state is planning to open up activities after the sixth phase of the lockdown ends on July 31, with officials estimating that cases would likely rise in August. “There are projections that cases are likely to rise in August. The state government is preparing to deal with the situation as projected by experts,” said a senior official, requesting anonymity.

Notwithstanding the continued surge, the state is considering to give further relaxations from next month. “The decision is yet to be taken, but the chief minister is contemplating giving more relaxations and the existing lockdown is likely to continue for one more month. However, restrictions in containment zones will remain strict,” said a senior official, wishing not to be named.

Chief secretary Sanjay Kumar on Sunday said the discussion is still on over giving relaxations. “The discussion on the relaxations to be offered from the first week of August is underway and we are planning to issue the notification by July 31,” he said.

To deal with surge in cases, the state government has decided to augment health infrastructure in each and every district. It has developed field hospitals in Mumbai and similar field hospitals are now coming up in other eight satellite cities — Thane, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivli, Mira-Bhayander, Ulhasnagar, Panvel, Vasai-Virar and Bhiwandi-Nizampur — of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

It is also facing shortage of health staff that includes doctors, nurses, para medical staff etc. the officials said.

Meanwhile, Pune continued to contribute more daily cases than Mumbai as the city recorded 1,104 cases on Monday. Its case count stands at 52,395 cases. It has contributed the second-highest number of cases after Mumbai. Pimpri-Chinchwad, satellite city in Pune Metropolitan Region, has recorded 656 cases, third-highest across the state.

Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on Monday directed authorities to develop three field hospitals to fulfil the demand of beds following rise in cases. “We have to pla health infrastructure considering the number cases of cases by August-end,” Pawar said in a review meeting held in Pune.

So far, the state has tested over 19,25,399 people, of them, 15,41,676 tested negative.

As many as 2,21,944 infected patients have recovered and discharged from various hospitals across the state. On Monday alone, 8,706 have recovered, taking the recovery rate to 57.84%.

Tope also pointed out that the number of recovered patients (8,706) were more on Monday than new cases (7,924). “We look it as an improvement in the situation,” he said.

Currently, 44,136 people have been kept at institutional quarantine facilities and 922,637 people have been home quarantined across the state.