Maharashtra on Monday recorded more than 2,000 Covid-19 cases for a second day in a row with 2,033 new infections, taking the total to 35,058. On the shortfall of 28 cases when adding the latest infections to Sunday’s tally, Archana Patil, director, directorate of health services, said the reconciliation of figures with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) portal is still in process. “The issue of difference in figures will be resolved in eight-10 days,” she said.
The state has 25,392 active cases, said health officials.
The state’s death toll went up to 1,249 after 51 deaths were reported on Monday. Of the deaths, 23 were in Mumbai, eight each in Navi Mumbai and Pune, three in Jalgaon, two each in Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Nagpur and one each in Palghar and Bhiwandi. Also, one patient from Bihar died in Mumbai on Monday. Twenty-one patients were above 60 years of age, while 19 were in the age group of 40 to 59 years and the remaining 11 were below the age of 40 years. Of the deceased, 35 had high-risk co-morbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments, health officials said.
Mumbai, the worst-hit city in the country, recorded its second-highest one-day spike after Sunday with 1,185 new cases, bringing the count to 21,335.
On Sunday, the city had recorded 1,595 cases. The toll of Mumbai is 757.
State health minister Rajesh Tope has already indicated that there will be a rise in fresh cases with the peak likely to be by June-end.
However, officials said that it may come down after 14 days when the fifth incubation period of the virus will be completed.
As the Maharashtra government is set to further relax restrictions in Lockdown 4.0, the number of fresh cases in the state has started soaring, indicate the figures.
3 days, the state has recorded 19,561 cases. It means on an average, it is getting around 1,500 fresh cases daily.
On Sunday alone, it registered 2,347 cases — the highest single-day spike.
The state is experiencing a significant rise since May 6, when it has started getting over 1,000 cases daily. In May (last 18 days) alone, the state has reported as many as 24,588 cases, whereas the total number of cases registered in April was 10,201.
Till April-end, the number of new cases was ranging around 500 after which it turned into four digits since May 6.
The fresh infections since then are as follows: May 6 – 1,233; May 7 – 1,216, May 8 – 1,089; May 9 -1,165; May 10 – 1,278 cases, May 11 – 1,230; May 12 – 1,026; May 13 – 1,495; May 14 – 1,602, May 15 – 1,576; May 16 – 1,606 and May 17 – 2,347 cases.
Besides, on May 10, the state also declared 665 cases respectively, saying that they were registered in the few days prior to that and are being declared as per the Central government’s directive to bring the data at par with the national figures on the ICMR website.
The first case of Coronavirus in the state was reported on March 9 and it took 30 days for the state to cross the 1,000 mark. For the first 10,000 cases, it took 53 days.
Between April 19 and 30, the state was getting around 500 new cases daily. Dr Tatyarao Lahane, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), said, “We will have to wait for another 14-day incubation cycle to complete (by May 31). After this, the rise is likely to come under control and gradually, the decline is expected. However, if it does not happen, then it may lead to community transmission stage.”
He also said that the state has not reached the community-transmission stage — where the source of the infection is unknown — as there is no exponential growth in the number of fresh cases.
As the cases are rising, the number of recoveries, too, has also jumped to 8,437 as 749 patients recovered on Monday.
The doubling rate in the state has improved to 11.1 days from 10 days, said Dr Pradeep Vyas, principal secretary, state health department. The state government wants to take the doubling rate to 20 days soon.
The state government had also resolved to bring the entire state into the green zone by this month-end, which seems unlikely as, according to the health minister, the peak has not come yet and is likely to come by June-end.
“All the predictions about rise in cases in Mumbai and Maharashtra have not come true, but the numbers are rising and the peak is yet to come. Going by the mathematical predictions, actual peak is likely to come by June-end. It means by June-end, the number of cases in Mumbai will increase four times. We are trying to prevent it from coming, but have to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best,” Tope said.
So far, 18,678 people have been kept in institutional Quarantine in the state and over 3,66,242 people have been put under home quarantine.
On Monday, the state also completed 56 days of lockdown, which was imposed from the midnight of March 23, a day before the nationwide lockdown was imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It was partially lifted on April 20 in areas where there are no cases or are minimal in number. The announcement of more relaxations is likely to come on Tuesday.
On Monday, the health department also declared to have conducted 2,82,194 tests at various public and private facilities across Maharashtra. Of them, 2,47,103 people tested negative.
State currently has 1,681 active containment zones.
A total of 14,041 survey teams, comprising doctors and assisting staff, have screened more than 60.47 lakh people.
The mortality rate of the state has come down to 3.62% (1,198 deaths) on Sunday, from 7.41% (148 cases) on April 13. However, it continued to be higher than the national mortality rate of 3.15% (3029 deaths) till Sunday, revealed the data of the state medical education department.