Maharashtra crosses 20K new cases mark after 2-day drop, Covid-19 case count 1,263,799

After reporting less than 20,000 cases for two days, Maharashtra recorded 21,029 fresh infections on Wednesday, taking the case count to 1,263,799. It was the 15th

After reporting less than 20,000 cases for two days, Maharashtra recorded 21,029 fresh infections on Wednesday, taking the case count to 1,263,799. It was the 15th day when more than 20,000 fresh cases were recorded in this month. The number of active cases went up to 273,477, 21.63% of the total cases reported so far.

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Death toll reached 33,886 with 479 new casualties reported. The highest toll in a day so far was recorded on September 15 with 515 fatalities.

Maharashtra has continued to struggle to control Covid-19 cases as the surge in cases has not come down since lockdown restrictions were eased in phases from June 3. Free movement of people allowed the pandemic to reach even rural areas.

The state has recorded 472,545 cases and 8,941 deaths in the past 23 days, which means an average of 20,545 cases and 388 casualties were recorded per day.

In August, a total of 371,238 cases and 9,589 deaths were reported.

The tally of fresh infections is likely to increase even further, according to an internal projection of the state health department. It states that daily cases are likely to rise by the end of this month. Officials, however, said detecting more cases should not be considered as a negative thing in this scenario as it will help in breaking the chain. They added that early detection also means less fatality.

He added that following social distancing norms is the only way to control the pandemic, for which peoples’ cooperation is a must. “We want everyone to contribute in controlling the spread,” he added.

Meanwhile, the door-to-door survey under the ‘My family My responsibility’ initiative launched by the state government seems to be working. Survey teams have found over 4,500 Covid-19 positive patients in the past one week. They have also found more than 5 lakh comorbid patients in the same period.

Since the campaign started, 7,075,797 homes have been visited and health surveys of 28,363,000 people have been carried out, according to a statement from the chief minister’s office. It added that 4,824 people were found positive for coronavirus and 7.54 lakh people were found with comorbidities.

To tackle the surge in Covid-19 cases and reduce number of deaths, the state government launched the initiative on September 15. The state-wide survey aims to check 2.25 crore families for symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI), severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and comorbidities. The idea is to effectively curtail the spread by reaching out to each and every citizen of the state and provide necessary care wherever required.

Under the campaign, health workers are conducting door-to-door surveys to check residents’ body temperature and oxygen level, besides other symptoms including tiredness, throat pain, dry cough, diarrhoea, and loss of smell and taste.

Each team comprising one health worker and two volunteers will survey each and every family of the state twice in over a month. The state is also assigning one doctor for every five teams. The first phase of the survey is expected to be completed by October 10, while the second phase will be conducted between October 12 and 24.

Though the case fatality rate (CFR) of the state is going down, the number of daily deaths still remains highest in the country with Maharashtra accounting for 37.64% of the total deaths reported across the country till Wednesday at 90,020 deaths.

In terms of CFR, Maharashtra comes second with 2.68%, right after Punjab which has 2.89% CFR with 2,926 deaths on Tuesday, according to the statistics shared by the state medical education department.

Meanwhile, Mumbai recorded 2,360 cases, highest in the state, on Wednesday, pushing its tally to 190,264. Of them, 27,186 are active cases. The death toll in the city reached 8,604 with 49 deaths on Wednesday.

Pune city has contributed the second highest cases in the daily caseload as it recorded 1,797 cases on Wednesday, taking its tally to 146,062 while Nagpur city becomes third with 1,373 cases, taking its case count to 52,967.

The state has conducted 89,503 tests on Wednesday, far less than 105,026 tests done on Tuesday. The total number of tests conducted till date is 6,106,787. The state aims to conduct 1.5 lakh tests a day.