There was a slight drop in the number of daily cases in Maharashtra and Mumbai on Friday. In the last 24 hours, the state reported 3,145 new cases and 45 fatalities. The respective count has now reached 19,84,768 and 50,336 so far. Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 574 new cases and eight deaths on Friday, taking the corresponding tallies to 3,01,652 and 11,227.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, chairman, communicable diseases prevention control and technical committee of the state, said that there is no need to panic. However, surveillance needs to be ramped up, as the virus is mutating. Yet, there are no major genome changes found in the state till date. He also said there is no need to change treatment protocol as of now.
“The virus is changing. It is doing this even in Maharashtra, but fortunately whatever changes took place have not resulted in a major change in virulence or its transmission capacity. We have not found any major genome changes in the virus till date, but no one can guarantee that it won’t happen in the coming days,” Salunkhe said.
However, Maharashtra is all set for the vaccination driver that will start today at 291 vaccination centres across 36 districts. The state has a cold chain system in place. 16,000 vaccinators have been trained and are ready for the drive. 780,000 health care workers have already been registered on the CoWin-20 application. People from other categories, like frontline workers, are being registered by the respective departments.
