Mumbai sees lowest 1-day spike in cases in 56 days

Maharashtra on Tuesday recorded 5,134 Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 217, 121, as Mumbai recorded its lowest single-day jump in new infections in 56 days with

Maharashtra on Tuesday recorded 5,134 Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 217, 121, as Mumbai recorded its lowest single-day jump in new infections in 56 days with 785 more patients. Mumbai’s tally is 86,509, while there are 89,294 active cases in the state after 1,18,558 patients have recovered. The recovery rate of the state is 56.4%.

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The state also reported 224 new fatalities in the past 24 hours, of which 137 were in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), including 64 in Mumbai. The death toll in Mumbai crossed the 5,000 mark to touch 5,002.

The state toll stands at 9,250. The case fatality rate (CFR) of the state dropped to 4.26% from 4.69% on June 25. The national fatality rate is 2.80%. At present 6.32 lakh people are home quarantined, while 45,463 are institutionally quarantined. The state, till Tuesday, has conducted 11,61,311 tests and the positivity rate stands at 18.69%. After constantly reporting daily new infections at an average of 1,280 over the past week, the Mumbai new case count dropped to its lowest since 426 cases were reported on May 12. Although Mumbai reported a drop in cases, cases in other cities in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) have witnessed a rise after economic and commercial activities were opened up under Mission Begin Again. Mumbai’s share in the state case tally has dropped to 40.44% on Monday, from 56.58% on June 8, when private offices were allowed to operate.

During the period, rest of MMR’s share (eight corporations excluding Mumbai) rose to 29.91% from 18.7%.

The share of the cases in state figures of cities like Thane, Navi Mumbai and Kalyan-Dombivli rose to 5.78%, 4.39% and 5.12% during the period, from 5.67%, 4.06% and 2.13% respectively. Rest of MMR’s share in the toll of the state rose to 17.48% from 13.63% on June 8. The CFR of Mumbai is still high at 5.76%, against rest of MMR’s 2.49% and Maharashtra’s 4.26%

The state government, on Tuesday, extended the timings of shops and markets by 2 hours across the state. The earlier order issued on June 29 had restricted shops to remain open till 5pm from 9 am to avoid crowding at market places in cities and rural areas. The decision was taken after the authorities found unnecessary crowding after the relaxations were rolled out from June 3. The order issued on Tuesday however extended it by 2 more hours and the order will come into effect from July 9. “The market and shop owners associations will ensure that the additional relaxations do not lead to crowding in shopping areas,” the orders issued by chief secretary Sajay Kumar stated.

The shops will continue to operate on alternate days, while markets will remain open throughout the week. The state government has allowed hotels and lodges to open their shutters from Wednesday.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said that the authorities are wary about the spread of the virus after more activities, including operation of hotels were allowed. “Most of this in the beginning had come from hotels and thus we have taken due care, while opening hotels and restaurants. We have issued a strict SOP for them to ensure social distancing and there was no spread of the virus through them. We want to draw a perfect balance between economic normalcy and containment of the virus,” he said.

Thane mayor Naresh Mhaske said, “We have adequately augmented bed capacity and there is no dearth of beds with oxygen or ventilator facilities. It is true that the cases are high compared to Mumbai, but we are continuing with aggressive tracing and testing of suspected contacts. Earlier the transmission was more in slums, now it has shifted to buildings and colonies and thus it is comparatively easier for us to contain the spread. The number of cases is expected to drop in next few weeks.”

The state government is also wary about the surge more in MMR than in the rest of the state if more activities are allowed. Besides the differences in relaxations from the lockdown curbs in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, the bureaucracy and political leadership is also divided over the exemptions to the sectors. The permissions to the hotels and lodges to open from Wednesday, was a surprise for a section of bureaucrats and ministers. They were expecting the opening of more transportation facilities as it could have normalised more number of industrial and commercial activities. “Ramping up public transport and allowing more workforce in the offices, was on the priority list. The decision of opening of hotels and lodges was surprising for many in the government,” said a state government official.

Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders are not on the same page with the Shiv Sena leadership when it comes to relaxations from the lockdown curbs. NCP and Congress want more relaxations, against which Sena chief and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is opposed, as he wants to go slow in the wake of rising cases.