There has been a drop in the number of Covid cases across Maharashtra on Monday, with the state reporting 22,122 new infections and 361 Covid deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing its total positive cases to 56,02,019 and 89,212 fatalities. This is the lowest single-day cases reported since March this year.
Mumbai has witnessed a slight drop in the number of Covid cases on Monday, with the city reporting 1,057 new infections and 48 deaths in the last 24 hours, increasing its total count to 6,98,867 and 14,671 fatalities till now.
The recovery rate in city has increased to 93 per cent, with 1,312 being discharged across the city, taking the total recovery count to 6,53,998.
The Covid situation in Maharashtra is improving. The number of daily cases is declining and it is down to around half of what it was in the beginning of this month. In the past one week (May 17-23), the average of new cases recorded in the state was 28,777, whereas in the first week (May 1-7), the average was 56,326. In the second week (May 7-14), it dropped to 44,212 cases a day on an average, according to the statistics provided by the state health department.
Officials said that there is a limit on stretching the testing apparatus. Maharashtra is among the states having conducted maximum tests and the positivity rate has also started coming down.
“We have increased daily testing from a maximum of 96,000 per day in the first wave to 290,000 per day in the second wave, which is many times more than what we were doing last year. We have maintained tracing over ten contacts against one positive patient,” said Dr Archana Patil director, directorate of health services.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, state advisor on the Covid-19 and former director-general of health services said, “There is no doubt that testing is very important, but testing apparatus also has its limitations. There are operational difficulties as we cannot stretch them beyond a limit. We are also facing challenges in contact tracing as the entire machinery is overbur- dened with multiple responsibil- ities such as vaccination. We are trying to find alternatives to deal with the situation.”
According to Dr Tatrarao Lahane, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), the deaths have increased corresponding with the surge of the virus. “We saw increasing deaths due to the second wave which was more lethal than the first one. The current deaths are of those who have been affected mostly two weeks ago. Due to the lockdown, we will see the deaths stabilising and even coming down in the coming days,” said Lahane.
