Maharashtra reported the highest single-day spike in Covid fatalities on Sunday since the pandemic outbreak last year. The state reported 832 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours increasing the total death toll to 64,760. The state reported 66,191 new infections on Sunday, increasing its tally to 42,95,027 cases so far.
“Of the 832 deaths reported today, 360 occurred in the last 48 hours and 244 in the last week. Rest 228 deaths are from the period before last week. Out of the 228 deaths, 53 occurred in Pune, 43 in Aurangabad, 27 in Nashik, 23 in Nanded, 18 in Solapur, 16 in Ahmednagar, 15 in Thane, 12 in Nagpur, six in Chandrapur, four in Raigad, three in Sindhudurg, two in Jalgaon, one each in Gadchiroli, Jalna, Parbhani, Ratnagiri, Sangli and Bhandara,” said a senior health official.
However, for the second consecutive day, the city reported less than 6,000 cases on Sunday, with 5,542 new cases and 64 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, increasing its total positive cases to 6,27,651, and 12,783 fatalities till now.
The recovery rate of Mumbai has increased to 86 per cent, with 8,478 patients being recovered and discharged on Sunday, taking the total recover count to 5,37,711.
Moreover, the doubling rate of cases in the city has increased to 58 per cent, while the weekly growth rate has dropped to 1.17 per cent.
Dr Avinash Supe, a member of the task force on Covid deaths, said Mumbai's death rate is inching towards 1 per cent after having dropped to 0.2 per cent earlier this year. There are multiple reasons for the rising deaths in the city. “People struggle to get beds, resulting in delayed start of treatment. Many go to smaller centres that are not able to help patients adequately,” Supe said.
Dr Rahul Pandit, who heads the ICU department at Fortis Hospital, Mulund, and is a member of the state government’s task force on Covid-19, said the deaths will continue to worsen for another week or more. “People who were infected a fortnight back and failed to improve are most vulnerable,” he said.
The strain causing the second wave is deadlier and more infectious than the first one. “During the first wave, lung disease worsened in the second week. But we now get patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome within six days of the start of symptoms. The deterioration is very swift, especially among the younger people,” said Dr Pandit.
He said while patients, mostly middle class and well informed about Covid, diligently check their oxygen saturation on the pulse oximeter, they never do the six-minute walk test. “The six-minute walk should be done twice every day. If the count after the six-minute walk is 3 per cent lower than the baseline score, it is time to get hospitalised,” he said.
