Mumbai reports lowest Covid-19 case spike since May 12; Maharashtra tally 1,726,926

Maharashtra on Tuesday recorded 3,791 Covid-19 cases, second day of fewer than 4,000, pushing the count to 1,726,926. The day’s caseload included Mumbai’s smallest

Maharashtra on Tuesday recorded 3,791 Covid-19 cases, second day of fewer than 4,000, pushing the count to 1,726,926. The day’s caseload included Mumbai’s smallest spike in the past six months — 535 infections.

HT Image

Before this, the smallest spike was 426 on May 12.

It was the 24th consecutive day daily cases recorded in the state were fewer than 10,000. Active cases have maintained the downward trend and reached 92,461, which meant 5.35% of the total patients were taking treatment at various hospitals and Covid Care Centres in the state presently.

The state’s Covid-19 toll reached 45,435 as 46 casualties were reported. Of the total deaths, 37 were from the past 48 hours and five were from last week. The remaining four deaths were from the period before last week, health officials said.

Meanwhile, the total number of cases in Mumbai has reached 265,679, of which active cases were 16,373. There were 19 deaths reported and the total toll in the city has reached 10,484.

An initial hot spot for Covid-19, Dharavi has also witnessed a downward trend in November with just a case being reported. The total cases in Dharavi reached 3,606. City’s recovery rate is at 90% and the doubling rate of cases is 233 days.

Malegaon city in Nashik, which was also once a prime Covid-19 hotspot, recorded zero cases and no deaths on Tuesday. Total cases and deaths recorded in the city till date were 4,219 and 152 respectively.

The graph of fresh infections is gradually going down in the past 45 days. The downward trend in cases that started from the last week of September has continued even in the second week of November. On September 26, the state reported 20,419 cases and since then, it is on a decline. Since the past two consecutive days, fresh infections have not crossed the 4,000-mark. On November 9, cases recorded were 3,277 cases.

However, the danger is yet over as there are concerns over a rise in cases by the end of this month.

“This is the reason that the temporary facilities developed to fight against Covid-19 have been continued, despite beds at Covid care facilities and field hospitals being vacant with the number of active cases drastically reducing,” said a senior official from the state health department.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that the next 20 days were crucial and people will have to maintain social distancing, avoid crowding and wear masks to prevent another surge in Covid-19 cases in the state.

“Even if the numbers are coming in control, Diwali and the next 15 days after Diwali are the big test... European countries have gone on lockdown again.… if we have to go into a lockdown again, it will be very tough. I am seeing many people are not wearing masks, it will not be tolerated. Those who do not wear masks will be fined. An estimation said a patient without a mask could infect up to 400 people,” he said.

Solapur district contributed the second-highest infections in the daily caseload as it recorded 248 cases, taking its tally to 35,227.

Nagpur city recorded 215 cases, third-highest number of cases, pushing its count to 82,133.

With decline in fresh cases, the number of deaths also reduced. However, the case fatality rate (CFR) is not coming down. It has also maintained second position after Punjab in the country with 2.63%. The CFR of Punjab was 3.14% (with 4,338 deaths) till Monday, according to the information shared by the state medical education department.

The state has completed 9,536,182 tests with 53,242 conducted on Tuesday. The positivity rate for the day dropped to 7.12% against the overall positivity rate of the state that stood at 18.11%.

The number of recovered patients reached 1,588,091 with 10,769 recorded in the past 24 hours. The recovery rate was recorded at 91.96%.