Maharashtra sees jump in fresh Covid-19 cases to 5,011

Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded 5,011 Covid-19 cases, a 5,000-plus spike after nine days, pushing the infection count to 1,757,520. Active cases in the state further reduced to 80,221.

Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded 5,011 Covid-19 cases, a 5,000-plus spike after nine days, pushing the infection count to 1,757,520. Active cases in the state further reduced to 80,221.

A health worker takes a swab sample of a resident in Goregaon on Wednesday. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

The toll reached 46,202 as 100 more casualties were reported. Of them, 51 were from the past 48 hours and 26 were from last week. The remaining 23 deaths were from before last week, health officials said. The case fatality rate (CFR) stood at 2.63%.

Wednesday was the 32nd day the daily caseload was below the 10,000-mark. Compared to the last week of September, when daily cases were above 20,000 a day, the number of fresh cases is on a decline. The state reported 76,886 cases this month till date, whereas last month, over 200,000 (212,809) cases were recorded in the corresponding period. The average number of cases per day, too, has declined to 4,271, from 11,782 in the corresponding period last month, according to statistics issued by the state health department.

However, the concern of a surge in cases by November or from December still persists.

Dr Rahul Pandit, member of the state-appointed task force for the clinical management of critical patients, said they were worried over a possible second wave. “Coronavirus rises well in winter. With Delhi, we have the same experience in the country where spurt in cases is being observed after Europe and the United States. Festive seasons have just sort of slowed down when meeting and visiting people was very often. That helps increase the spread and now Christmas and New Year is also coming up,” he said.

“Third and most important reason is testing. The overall number of cases has come down and so have testing figures. We need to keep our guard up, by increasing testing and contact tracing. Even in Mumbai, testing has come down to 4,000-5,000 per day, against 15,000-16,000 used to be carried out before. We need to get back on track,” he added.

Mumbai saw 871 new cases and 16 deaths, taking the tally to 271,531 and the toll to 10,615.

Following Mumbai, Pune registered the second-highest number of cases at 339, and six deaths, followed by Nagpur city, which saw 269 cases and three deaths.

Along with a fall in the daily caseload, the number of institutionally quarantined cases and home quarantined people has also come down significantly. As of Wednesday, only 5,354 people in the state are institutionally quarantined and 750,992 people are quarantined at home.

A look at the previous figures showed that 36,827 people were institutionally quarantined while those quarantined at home were 1,770,748 on September 17. A month later, on October 17, the number of institutionally quarantined people declined to 23,749 and 2,395,552 people were home quarantined.

Infected patients without symptoms or mild symptoms or their close contacts are institutionally quarantined at the Covid-19 facilities set up by the state government in all districts. Similar is the case with people quarantined at home.

“The decline in the number of people institutionally quarantined and quarantined at home is because the cases have reduced. Since fewer people are testing Covid-19 positive, consequently, the number of their close contacts has also reduced, thus fewer people are quarantined at home and at institutional quarantine facilities,” said Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer.

The state has completed 9,900,878 Covid-19 tests, with 53,400 tests conducted on Wednesday. The positivity rate for the day was recorded at 9.38%, against the overall positivity rate of the state at 17.75%.

The number of recovered patients reached 1,630,111 with 6,608 recorded in the past 24 hours. The recovery rate was recorded at 92.75%.