State’s case count goes up to 29,100; govt calls for lockdown extension

Maharashtra’s coronavirus case count went up to 29,100 with the addition of 1,576 infections on Friday, as the state government said it is in favour of extending

Maharashtra’s coronavirus case count went up to 29,100 with the addition of 1,576 infections on Friday, as the state government said it is in favour of extending the lockdown.

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India’s worst-affected state accounts for more than 35% of the total cases in the country. The worst-hit city, Mumbai, reported 933 new cases, its second-highest single-day spike, taking the total to 17,671. The state’s death toll went up to 1,068, including 655 in Mumbai.

Of Friday’s 49 deaths, 34 were in Mumbai, six in Pune, two each in Dhule, Kalyan-Dombivli, Akola city and one each in Panvel, Jalgaon and Aurangabad city. Twenty-two of the patients who died on Friday were above 60 years of age, while 23 were in the age group of 40 to 59 years and the remaining were below the age of 40 years. Thirty-two of them had high-risk comorbidities including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments.

The state has seen 10,037 cases in seven days, while the deaths reported in this period were 337. Mumbai reported 5,529 cases and 193 deaths in the past seven days. With an average of more than 1,400 cases a day over the past week, the state is set to cross the 30,000 mark on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the state on Friday submitted its position to the Centre on extending the lockdown, according to officials. The state is in favour of extension with more relaxations in less affected zones, so as to ensure economic activities resume gradually.

“We have already given the nod for industrial activities in green and orange zones with some conditions and are getting good response. A total of 38,287 industrial units with a workforce of 10.66 lakh workers are in operation in the state. With more relaxations for industrial and commercial activities in these two zones, we also expect more commercial activities to resume in red zones too,” said a senior government official.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said that the decision about red zones will be taken by May 18, but the state government is considering easing the lockdown in non-affected areas in red-zone districts too.

“There will be more commercial and industrial activities allowed in green and orange zones from Monday by keeping the district’s borders sealed. Non-essential shops could be allowed in a staggered manner. We are also of the opinion that non-affected tehsils or areas in red zones should also have restrictions relaxed. Like for Pune, activities can be allowed in tehsils where there are no cases,” he said.

The state government is also planning to resume registration of land deals and vehicles. Largely affected cities like Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nashik may also see relaxations in commercial operations. “We will wait for the Central directives for lockdown implementation in red zones. The state cannot relax restrictions imposed by the Centre, although it has the right to impose stricter norms. We expect more activities to be allowed outside containment areas in red zones and that would help us ease restrictions in big cities,” said another official who is privy to the development.

The number of tests in the state touched 2,50,436 on Friday. 22,1336 of them were negative. Of the 10,291 tests conducted in the past 24 hours, 1,576 tested positive at 15.31%.

Maharashtra’s mortality rate has dropped to 3.70%, still above the national rate of 3.23%, while the doubling of cases rate in Maharashtra is little more than 10 days.

A total of 3,29,302 people are currently under home quarantine, while 16,306 are under institutional quarantine. 14,167 teams of health workers have screened 58.97 lakh peoples. A total of 6,564 patients have fully recovered at various hospitals, after testing positive in the past nine weeks.

The state has 1,473 containment zones. In Mumbai, the municipal corporation has broken the zones into smaller ones for better monitoring.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, his deputy Ajit Pawar discussed the extension of the lockdown and exit plan with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar at the bungalow earmarked for the Bal Thackeray memorial in Dadar. Senior ministers and key officials from the government attended the meeting. Pawar reportedly suggested the state government to go for easing restrictions on industrial and commercial activities as it would help the government revive the state economy, which has sustained huge losses due to the lockdown.

After the meeting, chief secretary Ajoy Mehta had a video conference with the cabinet secretary of the Centre, during which the state’s stand on the lockdown was submitted.

Representatives of industries and businesses in commercial activities have requested the state government to allow more activities in green and orange zones. In its memorandum to Thackeray, Retailers Association of India (RAI) has demanded that micromarkets in non-containment areas should be considered. “It may be prudent if the suburbs are demarcated ward-wise and stores in non-containment zones are identified and allowed to open,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of RAI. He said that the malls, too, should be allowed without theatres and food malls.