Mumbai, on Wednesday, recorded its highest one day cases, reporting 2,848 new infections and a total count of 2,19,938 cases. The previous highest was 2,654, which was reported on September 30. Meanwhile, the city’s COVID-19 death toll has now reached 9,245, with 46 fatalities being reported in the last 24 hours.
Similarly, the death toll in Maharashtra crossed 39,000-mark on Wednesday. 355 fatalities were reported, taking the tally to 39,072 so far. Meanwhile, the state has also added 14,578 new infections in the last 24 hours, taking its overall tally to 14,80,489 cases.
Moreover, Maharashtra is short of 4,000 cases for its number of recovered patients to breach the 12 lakh mark. On Wednesday, 16,715 patients recovered across the state, taking the total count to 11,96,441 till now.
A Health Department official said that the decline in cases is a ‘positive’ sign. He added that areas, such as Nagpur, Nashik and Pune, have been recording fewer cases compared to a fortnight ago. “Further unlocking and the upcoming festive season could cause some spike in the daily cases, but it is not expected to get out of control,” the official said.
The state reported a steady decline in its cases over the past two weeks. The decline has been attributed to concentrated efforts in the districts where the cases were high. However, its death count is mounting. The state is inching towards the grim mark of 40,000 deaths due to COVID-19 and could breach it this week. Currently, its case fatality rate (CFR) is 2.64 per cent.
“We continuously focused on the districts with high cases over the past few weeks by closely monitoring them with the officials at the district level. We expect the My Family, My Responsibility drive, which emphasises on behavioural communication, to help us further early detection and early treatment and keep the mortality rate in check,” said state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate. So far, a total of 73.24 lakh tests have been conducted in the state, of which nearly 20.21 per cent were positive. There are 22.48 lakh people in home quarantine and over 25,655 people in institutional quarantine.
