Maha’s Covid case count hits 20,000; India crosses 60,000

Maharashtra crossed the 20,000 mark for coronavirus cases with the addition of 1,165 infections on Saturday. It also reported its highest single-day toll of 48 deaths, taking the fatality count to 779. Of the new cases, 722 were from Mumbai, taking India’s most affected city’s case count to 12,864.

HT Image

Across India, the number of fatalities due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crossed 2,000 and total infections rose above 60,000 on Saturday, doubling in roughly 11 days as the country now plans to resume more economic activity, while bracing for a spike in infections due to the increased movement. According to data compiled from numbers released by state authorities, there were 3,049 new infections and 117 new deaths recorded on Saturday. In all, there have now been 62,715 people sickened by Sars-Cov-2, which causes Covid-19, and 2,025 fatalities. Roughly 19,165 people have recovered from the disease.

The highest number of cases continued to be detected from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

Maharashtra state took just nine days to go from 10,000 cases to 20,000, after taking 53 days for the first 10,000. Maharashtra reported its first case on March 9.

Of the 48 deaths registered across the state on Saturday, 27 were in Mumbai, nine in Pune and eight in Malegaon. Pune rural, Nanded, Akola and Amravati saw one death each. Twenty-seven of the deaths on Saturday were of patients above 60 years of age, while 18 were in the age group of 40-59 years. At least 28 of them had high-risk comorbidities. Meanwhile, the state health department has added a disclaimer to its data, saying that 178 patients from Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) have been added to the ICMR data of cases on its portal, but the reconciliation of the figures by the state is yet to be done. It has also stated that as the collection of data is a progressive process, the numbers could vary

As of Saturday, the mortality rate in the state stood at 3.83%, down from 7.21% on April 12, but the number of deaths is increasing. The country’s mortality rate hovers around 3.32%. According to a report by the medical education and drugs department, 21.91% patients are in the age group of 21-30 years, followed by 21.21% between the ages of 31 and 40. 17.96% are between 41-50 years, 15.30 in 51-60 years age group while just 8.46% of the patients are from 61-70 years age group. The report has also highlighted that 73% of those who died of Coivd-19 had high-risk comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, heart ailments, among others. A total of 59% patients were asymptomatic, the report released on Saturday stated.

Of the 19,063 cases registered till Friday in the state, 94.85% or 18,081 cases were from the areas governed by 27 municipal corporations. A total of 686 of the state’s 731 deaths (till Friday) were from these urban areas, where the density of population and even the percentage of slums is high.

Among the municipal corporations, Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Aurangabad, Navi Mumbai are the most affected cities. 86.48% or 16,482 of the total cases till Friday are from MMR and PMR (Pune Metropolitan Region), which are the most populated areas in the state, accommodating around 30 % (or 35 million) of the state’s total population on over 11,600 square km, which is less than state’s total area. These two adjoining regions have reported 85.77% or 627 of the total 731 deaths reported till Friday.

The state government, which has hinted at the extension of the ongoing lockdown till the end of the month at least in MMR and PMR, has directed the municipal corporations in the most affected cities to concentrate on containment zones. The task forces of the senior officers have been directed to minutely monitor the progress in these cities. “We may extend some relaxations for the industries after the third phase of lockdown ends on May 17 in the orange and green zones. Red zones too, may have brief relaxations outside the containment zones, but at the same time the implementation of the lockdown in containment zones would be stricter,” said a senior bureaucrat.

In the past 24 hours, the state has carried out 15,454 coronavirus tests and 1,165 people have tested positive, which is 7.53% of the total people tested. The number of tests in the state touched 22,7804 on Saturday. 2,06,841 of them were negative. 2,41,290 people are currently under home quarantine, while 13,976 are under institutional quarantine. 12,388 teams of health workers have screened 55 lakh people for suspected infection, after they came in contact with patients. 3,800 patients have fully recovered from various hospitals, after testing positive in the past nine weeks.

The state has 1,243 containment zones earmarked for the strict lockdown owing to the high number of positive patients. In Mumbai, municipal corporation has broken the zones into smaller ones for better monitoring.

Expressing his concerns over the plight of migrant workers, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar spoke to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and railway minister Piyush Goyal, requesting them for the travelling arrangements for the migrant workers who want to return to their respective states. “CM Thackeray has assured me of arrangements for the transportation of these workers and said that the State Transport buses will be used for their travel. Railway minister too has assured additional trains for the workers,” he said.

Pawar said that prime minister Narendra Modi should speak to the chief ministers of the respective states, asking them to clear the entry for migrant workers willing to return home.

Meanwhile, state health minister Rajesh Tope reiterated on Saturday that the state government will take strict action against overcharging by the private hospitals. He announced the signing of an agreement with four private hospitals in Aurangabad for treatment of patients under the state government’s Mahatma Phule Janarogya Yojana , the scheme for free treatment at 1,000 private hospitals.

Meanwhile, according to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, India has now raised its testing capacity to 95,000 per day and a total 1,525,631 tests have been conducted so far across 332 government and 121 private laboratories.

“We do not anticipate a very worst type of situation in our country like many other developed countries but still we have prepared the whole country for the worst situation,” Harsh Vardhan said at meeting to review the status of Covid-19 outbreak in northeastern states.

The health minister said there are now 8,043 hospitals dedicated for Covid-19 patients with a total bed capacity of 1.67 million beds and the country was adequately prepared to handle a surge.

Globally, the virus has now infected over 4 million people and claimed the lives of at least 277,000 people in what is the worst pandemic the world has seen since the Spanish Flu in 1918.

The minister’s remarks come a day after a top government official said India now needs to learn to live with the virus. “We will have to learn to live with the virus, for which it is important to make critical behavioral changes and incorporate all the preventive guidelines that health ministry has been issuing on following hand hygiene, cough etiquettes and social distancing measures, as part of your daily routine. It is an everyday battle for us to keep the infection at bay,” said Lav Agarwal, health ministry joint secretary, in a briefing on Friday.

Authorities are now focusing on 10 states that account for the most number of cases. “The ministry of health and family welfare has decided to deploy Central teams to 10 states that have witnessed/are witnessing high case load and high spurt of cases. The teams will assist state health departments of respective states to facilitate management of the outbreak,” health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The expert teams consist of a senior official from the health ministry, a joint secretary-level nodal officer, and a public health expert. The states where the teams are being sent are Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The outbreak in India began on March 2 and by the end of the month, the country was under a sweeping lockdown that helped avert a situation in several populous countries where tens of thousands have now died.

But pressure to relax the curbs are now growing, with large number of people having lost their livelihoods – especially people from lower economic groups such as factory workers and daily wage earners who have been walking in the thousands to their hometowns hundreds of kilometers away.

In Uttar Pradesh, the government estimated that more than 100,000 people who were in other states for work were scheduled to return by Saturday night after the government started special trains. Another 98 trains will reach the state on Sunday and Monday, according to the official.

The movement has also raised fears of infections growing as the tens of thousands taking the trains come in potential contact that could spread the virus.

Similar concerns also surround Indians returning from abroad. On Saturday, at least two foreign returnees who reached Kerala on May 7 in two separate first-day flights -- one from Dubai and another from Abu Dhabi – tested positive for the disease.