State opens up MMR roads as Covid tally goes past 75,000

Maharashtra on Thursday crossed the dreaded 75,000 coronavirus cases mark as inter-district movement in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) got the government go-ahead

Maharashtra on Thursday crossed the dreaded 75,000 coronavirus cases mark as inter-district movement in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) got the government go-ahead from today, along with the reopening of shops in the city — a red zone —as part of “Mission Begin Again”.

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The mission aims to bring the state on track to routine life amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

On Thursday, with 2,933 new cases, Maharashtra’s tally went up to 77,793. Of them, 41,393 are active cases, according to the state health department, while the state has also completed over 5 lakh Covid-19 tests.

The state also reported 123 deaths, highest in a day, on Thursday, taking the toll to 2,710. Of Thursday’s deaths, 30 were from the past two days, while the rest were between April 30 and June 1, clarified the health department. Forty-eight deaths were in Mumbai, 21 in Jalgaon, nine in Pune, eight in Thane, seven in Solapur, six in Navi Mumbai, five in Aurangabad, three each in Raigad and Nashik, two each in Parbhani and Washim, and one each in Vasai-Virar, Panvel, Palghar, Dhule, Jalna, Osmanabad, Nanded and Yavatmal. Of the day’s deaths, 71 were above 60 years of age, while 44 were in the age group of 40 to 59 years.

The remaining eight patients were below 40 years of age. Of the deceased, 92 had high-risk co-morbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments, health officials said.

As cases are rising, the number of deaths has also started rising over the past fortnight. Statistics showed that the state has reported 1,575 deaths in the past 19 days (since May 18 when the state started recording over 2,000 cases in a day). It came to more than 58.11% of the total deaths — 2,710. This worked out to a daily average of 82 deaths.

In more than a week, the mortality rate has also increased to 3.48% (2,710 deaths on June 4) from 3.27% (1,792 deaths on May 26), which is higher than the national mortality rate of 2.80%, with 6,075 deaths till Wednesday, according to the data shared by the state medical education department.

However, the state has succeeded in bringing down the mortality rate significantly in the past two months. On April 13, the mortality rate of the state was 7.41% (148 deaths). This indicates improvement of 3.93 percentage points, the data shows.

Mumbai recorded 1,439 cases in a day, taking the city’s case count to 44,931, of which 25,364 are active cases. The city’s death count stands at 1,465.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said the recovery rate of the state is 43.29% and 33,681 patients recovered and have been discharged from various hospitals so far. “We have succeeded in bringing down the mortality rate by around 4%,” Tope said.

“Treating Covid-19 patients is a learning experience for us as the virus is mutating and reacting differently in different patients. We also have no studies available like with other contagious diseases and hence any comparison on mortality rate will not be appropriate at this point of time,” said a senior official from the medical education department.

The state health department said that the situation is improving as the compounded daily growth rate (CDGR) for Maharashtra has reduced to 4.17%, as against 7.76% on May 1. The country’s CDGR is 4.74%. The doubling rate has also increased to 17.35 days from 9.27 days on May 1.

Data shows that the state is getting more than 2,000 cases in the past 19 days (from May 17). In this period, it has also recorded over 47,256 cases. It means on an average, 2,487 cases are recorded daily in the state.

In comparison, the total number of cases registered in April was 10,201.

To put the steep hike in further perspective, one should consider that the state’s first coronavirus case was reported on March 9 and it took 30 days for the figure to cross the 1,000 mark.

Senior IAS officer Bhushan Gagrani said although the cases are rising, there is no surge. “There is rise in cases, but there is no surge in the number of cases. A geometric of exponential progression is called a surge, in which cases starts multiplying. In Maharashtra, there is no such situation,” Gagrani said.

He also said the cases are likely to rise as the state has started giving relaxations in three phases, even in red zones. “Rise in cases is likely to happen, which is why we have graded the relaxations,” Gagrani said.

Meanwhile, the state government has decided to allow inter-district movement in MMR without any restrictions from June 5. However, interstate and inter-district movement in other parts of the state will continue to be prohibited. The state, however, has capped the number of staff to maximum 10 people in private offices, which have been allowed to operate from June 8.

According to the notification issued by the chief secretary Ajoy Mehta, all educational institutions — school, colleges and universities — have been permitted to operate its offices, but only for non-teaching purposes, such as development of e-content, evaluation of answer sheets and declaration of results. Also, shops and markets places have been allowed to open for full working hours. In Mumbai, the BMC has decided to open shops between 9am to 5pm from Friday onwards.

State currently has 3,804 active containment zones. A total of 19,132 survey teams, comprising doctors and assisting staff, have screened more than 72.37 lakh people.

So far, 30,623 people have been kept in institutional quarantine in the state and over 5,60,303 people have been put under home quarantine.

On Thursday, the state also completed 5 lakh Covid-19 tests. The health department said 5,10,176 tests have been conducted at various public and private facilities across Maharashtra. Of them, 4,32,383 people tested negative, said an official.