Maharashtra witnessed a 25 per cent and 19 per cent drop in corona cases and fatalities respectively on Monday, with 10,244 new infections and 263 deaths reported, increasing the total count to 14,53,653, with 38,347 deaths till now. Meanwhile, the state Covid-19 recovery rate has increased to 80 per cent on Monday, with 12,982 patients being recovered and discharged, taking the total count to 11,62,585 so far.
Of the 263 deaths, 133 were from the past 48 hours, 58 were from last week and the remaining 72 were from the period before. Of the total deaths, 79 in MMR, followed by 51 in Pune, 37 in Kolhapur, 27 in Nagpur, 21 in Akola, 18 in Latur and 15 each in Nashik and Aurangabad.
Mumbai, meanwhile also witnessed a slight drop in corona cases, with 1,836 new infections and 47 deaths on Monday, taking the total count to 2,16,281.
Fresh infections have not gone up in almost two weeks. However, officials said that they have to wait for more time to draw any conclusions as there are chances that cases are likely to rise in the backdrop of fresh relaxations in the lockdown.
However, despite the dip after the surge in the first three weeks of September, state officials said they were wary about a possible rise in cases over the next couple of weeks. “After the inter-district movement was allowed from September 2, there was a sudden spike in the first two weeks. A similar spike is projected over the next couple of weeks after restaurants resume operations from today and running of more local trains [for essential services workers]. However, it would not be as high as last month,” an official said.
The state has reported a steady decline in cases over the past two weeks. The decline has been attributed to concentrated efforts in the districts where cases were high. Apart from Mumbai; Pune, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Nashik, Solapur and Jalgaon were top contributors to cases in the state. Barring Mumbai, other districts have been able to bring down the daily infection considerably. In Pune, the daily caseload dropped to 2,396 on October 3, from 4,664 four weeks ago on September 5, while Nagpur saw a drop to 631 cases, from 787 during this period. Kolhapur, Solapur and Sangli reported a decline in four weeks to 315, 338 and 205 cases from 714, 703 and 888 cases respectively.
“We continuously focused on these districts with high cases over the past few weeks by closely monitoring with officials at district level. We expect the ‘My Family, My Responsibility drive’, which emphasises on behavioural communication, to help us further in early detection and early treatment, resulting in keeping mortality in check,” said state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate.
So far, a total of 71.69 lakh tests have been conducted in the state, of which nearly 20.69 per cent were positive. There are 22 lakh people, in-home quarantine and over 26,749 in institutional quarantine.
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