35 people including police personnel and government employees have tested positive for COVID-19 during the RT-PCR testing of 2,300 people conducted in the last 2 days during the winter session of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, news agency ANI reported.
On the first day of the winter session, 10 persons including 8 police personnel were found COVID-19 positive from the 3,500 samples tested.
On Thursday, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar reprimanded members in the Assembly for not wearing masks.
Intervening during the proceedings, Pawar said except a few members, the rest are not wearing masks in the House which he claimed was a matter of serious concern. He also urged the Chair to remove members, who were not wearing masks, out of the house,
''The menace needs to be taken seriously and we don't want a lockdown again," said Pawar.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra continued to witness a rise in the daily coronavirus infection cases as it registered 1,648 new cases on Sunday, which pushed the overall tally to 66,57,888, while the death of 17 patients took the toll to 1,41,433, the health department said.
The daily caseload in Maharashtra has been rising over the last few days. The state had reported 1,485 coronavirus cases on Saturday, 1,410 on Friday, 1,179 on Thursday, 1,201 on Wednesday, 825 on Tuesday and 544 on Monday.
On Sunday, 918 patients were discharged, which took the recovery count to 65,02,957.
As 1,02,045 tests were conducted during the day, the cumulative test count reached 6,84,55,314.
The state's recovery rate is 97.67 per cent, while the fatality rate is 2.12 per cent.
There are 9,813 active cases in the state.
(With agency inputs)
