Maharashtra’s Covid -19 case count now 1,922,048; active cases reduce to below 3%

With 50 new casualties, the state toll reached 49,305

With fewer cases recorded over the last few weeks, the number of active cases has reduced to 57,159 with their percentage against total cases dipping to 2.97%.

Covid-19 screening and swab testing of the passengers at Dadar station. (Pratik Chorge/HT)

Maharashtra recorded 2,498 cases on Monday, pushing the case count to 19,22,048.

With 50 new casualties, the state toll reached 49,305. Of them, 22 occurred in the last 48 hours, five in the last week and the rest 23 deaths are from the period before last week, the health officials said.

Maharashtra has been reporting fewer than 5,000 cases for the last 24 days. A comparison with the last two months shows an improvement as the average per day cases of this month has come down to below 4,000. In the last 28 days, it has reduced to 3,950 cases from 4,781 cases in November and 9,909 cases in October in the corresponding period.

Health experts insisted upon ramping up surveillance in the wake of a mutant of Covid-19 discovered in the United Kingdom and many other countries, which is believed to be 70% more transmissible than the original strain.

Dr Subhash Salunkhe, chairman, communicable diseases prevention control and technical committee of the state said that there is no need to panic but the surveillance needs to be ramped up as the virus is mutating but there are no major genome changes found in the state till date. He also said there is no need to change treatment protocol as of now.

“The virus is changing. It is doing this even in Maharashtra but fortunately whatever changes took place have not resulted in a major change in virulence or its transmission capacity. We have not found any major genome changes in the virus till date but no one can guarantee that it won’t happen in the coming days,” Dr Salunkhe said.

“Even in the UK, where the new variant was discovered, no change in treatment protocol has been made. Thus, there is no need to change it here even if it is detected. In the UK it was found in September and has already travelled to many countries in the last four months which means it is likely to be detected in the state hence we need to be very cautious,” he added.

The public health expert also expressed his unhappiness over weak health infrastructure and facilities across the state and the country. “The major shortcoming we are facing is the inadequate number of virological laboratories having facilities for genome studies. It is because health infrastructure is being neglected by the central government in all these years. Only five laboratories in the country have the facility of genome study whereas we should have developed two to three virological study laboratories in every state. The public health capacity including viral diagnostic capacity in public as well as the private sector is too less and we feel ashamed about it,” Dr Salunkhe commented.

Showing a decline, Mumbai has clocked 557 cases on Monday, taking the case count to 2,91,471. Of them, active cases are 8,862. There were 12 deaths reported and the toll in the city has reached 11,088.

Nagpur city contributed the second-highest number of infections in the daily caseload and recorded 290 cases. Their tally reached 110,491.

Pune city recorded 154 cases, third-highest number of cases. Its case count stood at 1,90,338.

The state has completed a total 1,25,43,772 Covid tests with 41,218 tests conducted on Monday. The overall positivity rate of the state stood at 15.32%.

The number of recovered patients reached 18,14,449 with 4,501 recorded in the last 24 hours. The recovery rate remains at 94.4%.

The state government has already imposed a seven-hour night curfew from December 22 till January 5 in all the major cities (municipal corporation areas) across the state, effectively meaning restrictions on new year parties and functions considering a mutation of Sar-CoV-2, which is believed to spread faster than all its previous strains. It has also empowered the district collectors to impose night curfew to contain the Covid-19 spread, with prior approval from the state government.

It has urged the citizens to stay at home while welcoming the new year on December 31 and January 1 and avoid crowding at public places especially at seashores, gardens and on roads. It has also started keeping all the travellers coming from Europe, Middle-East and South Africa in compulsory paid institutional quarantine for seven days as a precautionary measure.