Mumbai: Senior photojournalist Vivek Bendre (The Hindu) along with 3 other senior journalists lost their battle with COVID-19 on Sunday.
Bendre was known for his sports photography; he died on Sunday morning. He was admitted to the Bandra-Kurla complex jumbo facility after experiencing complications.
Apart from Bendre, Sachin Shinde (64) from Navakal, Sukhnandan Gavai of an Ulhasnagar daily and Jairam Sawant, assistant editor of Dainik Sagar also died due to COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported the highest single-day spike in Covid deaths on Sunday since the pandemic outbreak last year. The state reported 832 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours increasing the death toll to 64,760. The state reported 66,191 new infections on Sunday, increasing its tally to 42,95,027 cases so far.
The imposition of tougher restrictions in Mumbai appears to be helping – the number of new corona cases have been falling over the last 10 days, a 43 per cent drop since April 14. There were 9,925 cases were reported on that day, which dropped to 5,888 on April 24. Officials have attributed this drop to the early diagnosis of the cases, increased testing and restrictions imposed by the state government following which cases are under control.
As per the data shared by the health department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), 9,225 corona cases were reported on April 14, which dropped to 8,217 the following day, after which there was a slight increase -- 8,839 and 8,843 on April 16 and 17. But from April 18, cases dropped below 8,000 for the next five days, until April 24, when only 5,888 cases were reported in a single day.
Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state’s Covid-19 taskforce said that people have to become “more responsive” because “unless and until we get citizens’ cooperation for Covid-appropriate behaviour, mandatory masking policy, zero tolerance for violators, we cannot say that the worst is over. So, we have to maintain some tightness in adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour and protocols,” he said.
“There was a rapid scale-up of tests and when Mumbai started testing more than 50,000 cases, the test positivity rate which was, 25 per cent a week or 10 days ago, is now starting to hover at 16-18 per cent. In the last 3-4 days, there is a trend of a plateauing effect and we wish and pray that the worst is over,” he added.
