Mumbai: Maharashtra recorded the highest single-day Covid-19 deaths with 422 fatalities being recorded on Tuesday, taking the total death toll to 20,687 so far. The previous highest was 413 which was reported on August 13. Meanwhile, there has been a 32 per cent rise in cases, with 11,119 new cases reported in the state, increasing the progressive count to 6,15,477 until now.
Of the 422 deaths, 327 were from the last 48 hours, 67 from the last week and 28 from the period before last week. Of the total deaths, 162 were from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), followed by 113 in Pune, 52 in Nashik, 36 in Nagpur, 31 in Kolhapur, 16 in Latur, seven in Akola and three in Aurangabad, while two deaths were reported from another state.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, a public health expert who heads the state government’s communicable diseases prevention control and technical committee, said the cases were rapidly rising in rural areas since the lockdown restrictions have been eased. “Distribution of cases started soon after the state opted for unlocking the restrictions. Before that, cases used to be reported only from urban areas but now it [infection] has spread to semi-urban and rural areas. The overall cases are also increasing in an accelerated fashion,” Dr Salunkhe said.
Officials said another major cause of concern was Covid-19 fatalities. In the first 17 days of the month, the state has reported 5,271 deaths compared to 6,988 in July, 5,638 in June, 2,286 in May, 449 in April, and 10 in March. The case fatality rate (CFR) in Maharashtra was 3.35% on Monday. It continued to be second highest in the country after Gujarat with 3.54% CFR and 2,785 deaths and 78,680 cases till Sunday, according to government data.
The city too registered a dip in cases of the total added on Tuesday – 8.38% of cases were from Mumbai. For the second consecutive day, the cases reduced below 1,000, with 931 new cases and 49 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, taking the total progressive count to 1,30,410 with 7,219 deaths so far.
So far, a total of 32.06 lakh tests have been conducted in the state, of which nearly 18.84 per cent were positive. There are 10.53 lakh people in home quarantine and over 37,556 in institutional quarantine.
