For the fourth consecutive day, Maharashtra witnessed its highest one day COVID-19 recovery, with 26,408 having recovered and being discharged on Sunday, taking the total count to 8,84,341. The previous highest was 23,501, which was reported just a day before (September 19). Meanwhile, Mumbai, for the second consecutive day, witnessed more than 5,000 recoveries. 5,038 patients were discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 1,47,807 so far.
However, the city also reported 2,236 new cases and 44 fatalities on Sunday, taking the count to 1,84,313 and 8,466, respectively. The recovery rate of the city has now jumped to 80 per cent.
Moreover, the state COVID-19 tally has reached 12,08,642 with 20,598 new cases being reported in the last 24 hours. The death toll has now touched 32,671 with 455 deaths being reported on Sunday. Of the total deaths, 238 are from the last 48 hours and 109 are from the last week. The remaining 108 deaths are from the period before last week.
Maharashtra’s struggle to contain COVID-19 has become tougher since the lockdown was eased on June 3. Free movement of people allowed the virus to spread to rural areas. Consequently, the contribution of rural areas to the daily caseload has started increasing and is around 47 per cent. “There is no doubt that the removal of restrictions has led to this situation. The spike in cases will continue for a few more weeks. Festivals, too, have played a role in it. We, too, had anticipated a growth in cases. Thus, a conscious decision of giving graded relaxations was taken. The current surge is because cases are increasing rapidly in rural parts, which is concerning,” said a senior health official.
The state has recorded over 3,96,790 cases in the 19 days of this month and its average per day cases went up to 20,883. High number of casualties continues to be a cause of concern for the state authorities, as it is still the highest in the country. To bring it down, the state has launched a door-to-door survey under the My Family, My Responsibility initiative. It aims to check 2.25 crore families for symptoms of Influenza Like Illness (ILI), Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) and co-morbidities. The idea is to effectively curtail the spread with necessary care and also reduce the number of casualties.
