State reports sharpest 1-day spike of 3,890 Covid-19 cases

Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded its sharpest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 3,890 fresh infections, taking the total past 1.40 lakh cases to 142,900.

Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded its sharpest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 3,890 fresh infections, taking the total past 1.40 lakh cases to 142,900. The previous record single-day jump was on June 20 (3,874 new cases). The state also reported 208 more fatalities, taking the toll to 6,739. Mumbai recorded 1,118 new infections and 82 fatalities on Wednesday, inching closer to the 70,000 mark for cases at 69,528 total infections.

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Of the deaths reported on Wednesday, 72 occurred in the past 48 hours and 136 deaths were before that, the state health department said. Thirteen deaths were reported in Solapur, 10 in Nashik, nine in Navi Mumbai, eight in Jalgaon, five in Kalyan-Dombivli, three in Thane, one each in Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Akola, and Satara. The death of a person from another state was also reported.

The state has been recording over 3,000 cases for over a week, but Mumbai, which has contributed the most to the state tally so far, has been seeing fewer cases, while Mumbai’s surrounding areas, such as Thane, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Mira-Bhayander, are seeing more since last week.

According to the state health department data, Thane city recorded 214 new cases on Wednesday, while Navi Mumbai recorded 340 new cases. Kalyan-Dombivli saw 268 new cases and Thane district recorded 220 new cases. Mira-Bhayander and Vasai-Virar recorded 163 and 121 new cases, respectively.

Meanwhile, Pune recorded 425 more cases on Wednesday, while Pimpri-Chinchwad and Nashik saw 76 and 108 new cases respectively. Aurangabad saw 127 new cases. The state health department has already ramped up bed capacity and other health infrastructure in these areas to tackle increasing cases.

In the past 14 days, Mumbai has recorded 16,861 cases and averaged 1,204 cases daily. A senior bureaucrat said that the figures are “good signs” for Mumbai, but the “concern” are new hotspots in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). Senior officials said that poor contact tracing by respective municipal corporations are to be blamed for it.

“These are good signs for Mumbai. We certainly hope that the trend continues and that there is no second wave in wake of the relaxations given. MMR is seeing a rise in cases, due to poor contact tracing by local bodies. The data we see shows that they do not go beyond the family. Unless contacts are traced thoroughly, we cannot have targetted testing,” said a senior bureaucrat requesting anonymity.

A senior state government official said that the increasing case fatality rate in the state is a cause of concern. The rate in the state is at 4.72%, which is much higher than the country’s rate of around 3.18%. The official said, “There are 11 known variants of this virus. Eight of them lead to asymptomatic patients, while the three other strains lead to symptoms in patients. Out of these three, one causes fatalities. There needs to be a virology study on it for doctors to understand the rise in fatality rate,” he said. The state health department has sought drugs, including remdesivir, from the Centre to increase the recovery rate in the state.

The state also discharged 4,161 patients on Wednesday, pushing the recovery rate to 51.64%, from 50.09% on Tuesday. The total number of patients discharged in the state so far stands at 73,792. The number of active cases in the state stands at 62,354. The state has so far tested 8,23,775 samples and has a positivity rate of 17.34%. Currently, 5,57,948 people are in home quarantine and 33,581 people are in institutional quarantine, data from the health department stated.