Mumbai: A day after Maharashtra witnessed the highest single day spike in Covid cases, there was a sudden dip in the number, with only 394 new cases and 18 deaths being reported in the state on Friday.
The total number of cases is now 6,817, with 301 deaths and 957 recoveries so far. In Mumbai also, the number of cases dropped to 357, after 487 cases were reported on April 23, bringing the total number of cases to 4,589 and the death toll to 180, with 11 deaths being reported on Friday.
A civic official said, patients who had tested positive were being admitted to isolation wards and were under treatment. “168 of 357 cases were found positive in various laboratories between April 21 and April 22 and the numbers were updated on Friday. However, 189 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours,” he said.
Dr Archana Patil, state director of the Directorate of Health Services, said in the last three days, the number of cases were higher as backlogs of test results from private laboratories were cleared.
“The trend is that one day, the number of cases is higher and the next day, they're almost half. Today (Friday), the numbers have come down and for the trend to settle, we have to examine data over a week or 10 days,” she said.
According to the public health department, nearly 67 per cent of the cases and 59 per cent of deaths in the state have been reported from Mumbai. But for the third consecutive day, the BMC did not disclose the details of the deceased, such as their age and the comorbidities they had.
Dr Anup Kumar Yadav, commissioner, (family welfare), and director, National Health Mission, Maharashtra, said, there were 18 Covid deaths in the state. Of these, 11 were in Mumbai, five in Pune and two in Malegaon. He said, “12 of the 18 dead were men and six were women.
Nine of them were aged over 60, six from the 40-59 years age group and three were under 40 years of age. 12 of the18 patients (67 per cent) had high-risk co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma and heart disease. The death toll due to Covid-19 has now gone up to 301 in the state.”
Of the 1,02,189 laboratory samples, 94,485 were negative and 6,817 had tested positive for coronavirus until Friday. So far, 957 patients have been discharged, while 1,19,161 people are in home quarantine and 8,814 people are in institutional quarantine.
