It was after more than a hundred days that Maharashtra witnessed less than 6,000 coronavirus cases on Monday, with 5,984 new infections being reported and pushing the total count to 16,01,365. Similarly, the state also witnessed only 125 covid-19 fatalities in the last 24 hours, increasing the death toll to 42,240 till now.
Meanwhile, the covid-19 recovery rate has now increased to 87 per cent, with 15,069 being recovered and discharged across the state, increasing the tally to 13,84,879 so far.
Mumbai also witnessed a drop in covid-19 cases on Monday, with 1,234 new infections and 43 fatalities being reported in the last 24-hours. Taking the total count to 2,43,173, with 9,775 deaths so far.
With the drop in daily caseload over the past four weeks, the last 100,000 cases are expected to be reported in 10 days. The previous 100,000 cases were reported in eight days. In September, 100,000 cases were reported in just five days on two occasions. However, the state machinery is wary of a surge in cases by the end of November amid the onset of winter coinciding with more curbs lifted and the ongoing festival season.
State health officials said they are expecting a surge in cases by November-end as in the last two weeks major activities have been opened up in the state due to which they have witnessed a surge in cases. “We expect a similar rise in the next few weeks as a result of the unlocking rolled out in the first week of the month. The surge, however, would not be as high as in the first two weeks of September, when we saw daily cases at an average of 20,354. The virus is very unpredictable and the projections about its behaviour and infection curve have gone wrong across the globe. The surge, however, depends upon how seriously Covid precautions are followed by citizens,” he said.
So far, a total of 81.85 lakh tests have been conducted in the state, of which nearly 19.56 per cent were positive. There are 24.14 lakh people, in-home quarantine and over 23,285 in institutional quarantine.
