It is after six months that Maharashtra has reported more than 23,000 cases in one day. With 23,179 new infections and 84 covid-19 fatalities being reported on Wednesday, the state's tally has reached 23,70,507, with 53,080 deaths so far. The state had reported 23,365 cases in one day on September 16 last year. Mumbai reported the highest single-day cases since after October 7 when 2,848 cases were reported. On Wednesday, the city reported 2,377 new cases and eight deaths, increasing its overall count to 3,49,958, with 11,547 fatalities till now.
Meanwhile, for the third consecutive day, close to 10,000 patients were discharged from several hospitals in the state. The recovery rate of Maharashtra has dropped to 91.26 per cent with 9,138 patients recovering in the last 24 hours, taking the total count to 21,63,391.
Senior health officials from the state health department said that it will be too early to comment whether the recent surge is the onset of the pandemic's second wave, and coming to a conclusion would require scientific calculations based on several outbreak factors. “We can only urge citizens to follow covid norms strictly if they do not want to go endure same sufferings due to lockdown last year,” he said.
“Moreover, a virus is likely to mutate all the time and so this mutation is definitely causing a different kind of coronavirus and a different kind of Covid-19 presentation altogether in March 2021," he added.
