Mumbai reported 397 new COVID infections, the highest since July 28 and seven fatalities in the last 24 hours, taking the total count to 7,42,401 with 15,963 deaths till date. Meanwhile the doubling rate has dropped to 1,825 days, while the weekly growth rate is constant at 0.04 per cent.
Maharashtra too witnessed a surge in COVID cases in the last 24 hours, with 5,108 new cases and 159 covid deaths being reported on Thursday, pushing its tally to 64,42,788 with 1,36,730 fatalities till now. Moreover the total number of active cases in the state has increased to 50,393 so far.
Dr Rahul Pandit, a critical care specialist at Fortis Hospital and a member of Maharashtra’s Covid-19 task force said next six to seven months are more crucial as people need to adhere to COVID appropriate behaviour orelse there would be surge in the covid cases which is under control for now. Moreover the space between the two Covid waves has been 100-120 days. “Currently everything is in place so we need to prepare for the worst scenario. Moreover we need to build a gap of 200 days so that we can vaccinate as many people as possible and reduce the impact of the third wave when it happens,’’ he said.
Senior health officer said that the people were gradually giving up Covid-appropriate behaviour. “We are seeing that people are not maintaining social distance and have become very careless with regards to wearing masks and taking precautions. We are seeing an increasing number of Delta Plus virus cases and if this continues, we might face a third wave,
