Coronavirus in Maharashtra: No community transmission in state, says Rajesh Tope

Despite the rising number of coronavirus cases in the state, Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday categorically denied all reports of the outbreak having entered the community transmission phase. "I don't believe there is community spread," he said, against the backdrop of concerns about community spread in Delhi.

Tope explained that about 20 to 40 of cases have to come directly from the community where the health machinery is unable to determine by contact tracing where the patient may have contracted it from. "It is either from coming in contact with high-risk contacts like the index case or through infection from the index case through an intermediary," he said.

The minister informed that the state government is tracing every case by actively pursuing aggressive tracing, testing, isolation and treatment of Covid patients. ''This strategy is working. The state and civic bodies are therefore in a position to trace every coronavirus case,'' he noted.

The state health minister's comment comes a day after New Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain had said that the coronavirus cases in the national capital could not be traced to any source, which suggests community transmission. When the Centre denied this was the case, Jain said on Wednesday, "There is transmission in the community, but whether it is community transmission or not can be declared by the Centre only, it is a technical term."

New Delhi has less than 30,00 cases, as compared to 51,100 in Mumbai (which is more than the number of cases in Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the pandemic).

Meanwhile, Environment and Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray said the average doubling rate in Mumbai had slowed down to 24.5 days, while it is at a record 42 days in Dharavi. The death rate is 3.44%, which is almost on a par with the national rate, and the discharge rate is 44%.

Seconding Thackeray's view, saying that over 45,000 people have recovered and been discharged in the state so far, Tope said, "Our death rate is around 3.5%. Our doubling rate is more than 20 days. On all parameters, we are on a par, or doing better than the national average."