Maharashtra on Tuesday added 8,151 new cases and 213 COVID-19 fatalities, pushing the total count to 16,09,516, with 42,453 deaths so far. Around 7,429 patients have recovered across the state, increasing the tally to 13,92,308 till date.
Meanwhile, Mumbai reported 1,090 cases and 45 fatalities, pushing its tally to 2,44,262, with 9,821 deaths. However, the recovery rate has now increased to 88 per cent, while the overall doubling rate has also surged to 99 days.
Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said only a handful of pandals have been given permission. "Even for Durga Puja, only one pandal per ward has been admitted. If people follow the protective measures, cases will stay under control," he said.
The ratio of active COVID-19 cases, as compared to total cases reported, has come down to 10.85%. The corresponding figure was 26.33% on September 17.
However, key parameters, including the doubling rate and positivity rate are showing signs that the spread of coronavirus is slowing down in the state. State health department officials, however, warn that there could be a rise in new cases by mid-November.
The doubling rate, which is a crucial parameter to show the growth of the outbreak, improved to 48 days in the state. It took 48 days for the state to double its tally from 800,000 to 1,600,000, which is 14 days more than what it took for the state to go from 400,000 to 800,000 COVID-19 cases. Maharashtra went past 800,000 cases on September 1, while it crossed the 400,000-mark on July 29.
State surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate said the COVID-19 situation in the state is seeing a “decline”. He also added that active cases are declining at a faster rate than the new cases. Pointing out that the number of cases has declined by over 50% between September and October he said, “In the second week of September itself, we had nearly 1.53 lakh new cases, and now in the last week we had around 70,000 new cases. This is a reduction by 50% in new cases.”
