Days after the Centre’s advisory to step up corona management measures, the Public Health Department in its presentation to the state cabinet on Wednesday has raised an alarm over higher growth in weekly rise in patients in 10 districts and positivity rate than weekly average in another 10 districts. The health department’s warning is important as the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has yet to recede while there is a possibility of emergence of a third wave coupled with the threat of the Delta Plus variant.
Against the weekly average of 0.14%, the growth in number of patients is high in Kolhapur (0.86%), Sangali (0.64%), Ratnagiri (0.58%), Sindhudurg (0.56%), Satara (0.43%), Raigad (0.32%), Solapur (0.21%), Palghar (0.20%), Beed (0.18%) and Ahmednagar (0.16%). Besides, there are 10 other districts which have a high positivity rate against the weekly average of 4.36%. The tribal dominated Nandurbar district tops the list with a record high positivity rate of 11.72% followed by Kolhapur (9.85%), Sangali (9.20%), Satara (8.23%), Ratnagiri (7.91%), Pune (7.74%), Raigad (6.98%), Sindhudurg (5.94%), Aurangabad (5.10%) and Beed (4.64%).
Moreover, of the total active COVID-19 positive cases of 1,04,406 as on July 13, 10 districts have 96,543 cases which is 92.47%. These districts included Pune (16.38%), Thane (15.93%), Sangali (12.53%), Kolhapur (12.28%), Mumbai (10.08%), Satara (7.91%), Ahmednagar (5.21%), Raigad (4.74%), Solapur (4.09%) and Nashik (3.31%).
On the state’s preparedness to combat the virus infection, the public health department has said there are 4,63,120 isolation beds excluding ICU, 3,35,873 isolation beds for COVID-19 patients, 1,27,334 isolation beds for COVID-19 suspects, 1,07,138 oxygen beds, 33,326 total ICU beds, 13,361 ventilators, 15,31,398 PPE kits and 24,98,172 N95 masks.
The Public Health Department’s warning came on a day when the Home Ministry in its letter to the states and UTs has said that any increase in R-factor above 1.0 is an indicator of spread of COVID-19. R-Factor indicates the speed at which the infection is spreading in the country. The ministry has noted that it is important that the authorities concerned shall be made responsible for ensuring COVID Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) in all crowded places.
