State records 3,390 more cases, health minister says peak has started

Maharashtra’s Covid-19 case count on Saturday reached 1,07,958 after it recorded 3,390 more infections on Sunday — the fifth consecutive day of over 3,000 new cases

Maharashtra’s Covid-19 case count on Saturday reached 1,07,958 after it recorded 3,390 more infections on Sunday — the fifth consecutive day of over 3,000 new cases — even as state health minister Rajesh Tope said the pandemic’s peak has started in the state and that cases will continue to rise for the next 15 days at least. He also said that a drop in cases is likely to start from this month-end. Of the state’s tally, 53,017 are active cases, according to the state health department.

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Meanwhile, the number of recovered patients crossed the 50,000 mark on Sunday, two days after the state crossed the grim mark of 1 lakh patients. The total number of recovered patients stands at 50,978.

Tope said, “Fresh cases will continue to rise for the next 15-20 days as the peak has started. The decline is likely to start from June-end. I’m saying this going by what is happening in other countries. The situation in the state will stabilise and things will settle.”

The state also reported 120 deaths on Sunday, taking the toll to 3,950. Of them, 43 deaths are from the past two days, while the rest are between June 2 and June 11, clarified the health department. On June 11, the state had recorded its highest single-day increase in fatalities — 152. On Sunday, 1.632 patients recovered and were discharged from various hospitals across the state.

The recovery rate has improved and has reached 47.02% from 43% on June 1.

Mumbai, the worst-hit city across the country, has recorded 1,395 cases as its case count reached 58,226. Of them, 29,050 are active cases. The city also reported 69 deaths and toll stands at 2182.

On May 22, Mumbai has reported its highest one-day spike in cases — 1,751.

Statistics show that there has been an increase in new cases from June 3 since the state relaxed lockdown conditions even in red zones such as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) (the areas governed by nine municipal corporations including Mumbai), Pune, Solapur, Aurangabad, Malegaon, Nashik, Dhule, Jalgaon, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur — the 19 corporations.

On June 3, the total number of cases in the 19 municipal corporations was 67,885, which has now risen to 96,369. The 19 corporations also make up 89.26% of the total cases (1,07,958) recorded in the state.

The health officials, however, stressed that the situation is also improving as growth rate of new cases has come down and at the same time, doubling rate of new cases is increasing.

“We can say that the rate of growth of new cases has considerably slowed down and our case doubling rate is now better than the national average. Daily new cases in Mumbai is almost constant in the last seven days,” said Dr Pradeep Vyas, principal secretary, health department.

The state’s doubling rate of cases currently is 21.3 days, whereas the national average of doubling rate is 17.1 days.

Dr Hemant Deshmukh, Dean, KEM Hospital in Mumbai, also stressed that they have succeeded in stabilising the pandemic as they are getting fewer critical patients in the last few days. “My personal experience is that we have seen gradual decrease in the number of admissions of critical patients in the past five days. I can see two reasons for this. One, we have developed more centres for critically ill patients and second, the disease is probably getting stabilised. We have succeeded in reducing the criticalness of the disease due to aggressive contract tracing. We are getting more patients with mild symptoms,” Dr Deshmukh said.

Of the day’s 120 deaths, 69 are in Mumbai, 11 each in Pune and Jalgaon, seven in Aurangabad, five in Ulhasnagar, four in Thane, three in Solapur, two each in Osmanabad and Akola and one each in Palghar, Vasai-Virar and Ratnagiri.

Of total deaths reported on Sunday, 66 were above 60 years of age, while 40 were in the age group of 40 to 59 years. The rest 14 patients were below 40 years of age. Of the deceased, 80 had high-risk co-morbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments, health officials said.

The health department said 6,57,739 tests have been conducted at various public and private facilities across Maharashtra. Of them, 5,49,781 people tested negative, said an official.

The mortality rate, however, has also increased to 3.66% (3,830 deaths on June 13) from 3.27% (1,792 deaths on May 26). It is also more than the national mortality rate, which is 2.87%, with 9,195 deaths till Saturday, stated the data shared by the state medical education department.

So far, 29,641 people have been kept in institutional quarantine in the state and over 5,87,596 people have been put under home quarantine.

As part of the ‘Mission Begin Again’ to ease the lockdown, the state government from June 3 had allowed outdoor activities such as jogging, running, cycling in open grounds and stadiums. From June 5, it allowed shops and marketplaces to be opened and from June 8, it allowed private offices to open with a maximum strength of 10 people. It has further allowed inter-district movement in the MMR and allowed BEST buses to ply in the region from June 5.