There was a slight drop in the number of coronavirus cases in the city on Monday, with the city reporting 399 new infections and three COVID-19 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. With this, the city's total positive cases rose to 3,12,273 while 11,393 succumbed to the disease so far.
Maharashtra also witnessed a drop in daily COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, with the state reporting 2,216 new cases and 15 COVID-19 deaths on Monday. The state's total positive cases rose to 20,46,287 and deaths stands at 51,325 now.
The positivity rate has dropped to 13.76 per cent, with only 34,720 active cases across the state.
“Of the 15 deaths reported today, 8 occurred in the last 48 hours and 6 in the last week. Remaining 1 death is from the period before last week and had occurred in Yavatmal,” said Dr Pradip Awate, state surveillance officer.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, who chairs the Maharashtra communicable diseases prevention and control technical committee, said, “Although we are getting fewer daily cases, the number of active infections is still quite high. It simply means we need to be more careful because the situation is not what we anticipate.”
The declining COVID curve has continued since mid-November and December despite fear of a surge due to the festive season. Data by the state health department showed that December 2020 recorded a drop of 60 per cent and 84 per cent as compared to the total COVID-19 cases in November and September, respectively. Compared with May last year, December’s caseload dropped by around 70 per cent.
“Even though we are in a better situation than what we were in May and September, strict mask- ing and social distancing needs to be continued. Whatever we could achieve so far is because of the relentless efforts of our civic staff. We now want to focus on vaccination and ensure that we scale up our vaccine centres for a smooth implementation,” said Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner.
