For the second consecutive day, Maharashtra reported more than 300 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. 375 deaths were reported on Thursday, taking the toll to 57,028 fatalities till now. It is the highest single day count reported this year since October 2, 2020. Meanwhile, the state also reported 56,286 new cases on Thursday. The tally now stands at 32,29,547 cases.
“Of the 376 deaths reported today, 136 occurred in the last 48 hours and 110 took place in the last week. The remaining 130 deaths are from the period before last week. Of these 130 deaths, 22 occurred in Palghar, 18 in Pune, 15 in Solapur, 12 in Nagpur, 11 in Nanded, 11 in Nashik, 8 in Parbhani, 7 in Dhule, 6 in Thane, 5 in Amravati, 4 in Sangli, 3 in Aurangabad, two each in Ahmednagar, Jalna and Satara, and one in Ratnagiri and one in Jammu and Kashmir,” said a health officer.
Meanwhile, there was a slight drop in the number of cases in the city on Thursday. 8,938 new cases and 23 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours. The respective tallies now stand at 4,91,698 and 11,874 so far. City doctors say the rapid spread of the virus in big groups and the failure to prevent the entire family from getting infected despite isolating index cases are emerging as the key factors in the ongoing transmission.
Dr Neelam Andrade, dean of NESCO jumbo centres, said currently, they are getting more positive cases from one family or working place or a group of people who have attended weddings. “We did see one or two members from the same family or co-workers getting infected together, but never in such big groups,” she said.
Meanwhile, the hospital has been sending weekly samples of mild, moderate and severe patients for genome sequencing. “But no mutations or variants of concern have been found that could explain this. The disease appears to be more transmissible now,” said a senior health official. Genome sequencing of 223 samples from Mumbai has found the presence of the UK strain in 22 so far.
