City continues to report rise in COVID cases for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday, with the city reporting 921 new infections and four fatalities in the last 24 hours, increasing its tally of positive cases to 3,19,218 and 11,442.
Moreover, the weekly growth rate of cases in the city has increased to 0.20 percent, while the doubling rate also dropped to 346 days.
Maharashtra, meanwhile, reported close to 7,000 cases on Sunday, with the state reporting 6,971 new cases and 35 COVID-19 deaths, pushing its overall tally to 21,00,884 and 51,788 fatalities till now.
The recovery rate of the state dropped to 94.96 per cent compared to 95 percent which was constant for the last two months.
With the steady, yet alarming spike in infections, the state government has directed local authorities to take all preventive measures to arrest the virus’ spread, which includes bringing back lockdown restrictions. However, the state government is yet to call it a ‘second wave”, saying that it is too early to reach such a conclusion.
A comparison with last month’s figures showed a rise in cases as well.
As of February 20, a total of 70,159 cases have been reported in the state, while in January 63,770 infections were reported in the corresponding period, according to official figures.
Dr Archana Patil, director, directorate of health services (DHS), said they were focusing on improving the existing health infrastructure to deal with any situation, considering the spurt in cases along with bringing restrictions, wherever required. “It would be early to use the term ‘second wave’ as the growth in cases is not expo- nential and limited to certain areas. We still have to wait for some time to assess and analyse the rise,” Dr Patil said.
“Moreover, we are focusing on improving the health infrastructure to be prepared in case of further increase in cases. We are increasing the number of beds, oxygen supplies, ICU beds, medicine supplies etc. to deal with any situation. We are also in the process of increasing Covid Care Centres (CCC), Dedicated Covid Health Centers (DCHC) and Dedicated Covid Hospitals (DCH) for manage- ment of patients. CCC, DCHC and DCH were reduced as the number of cases had gone down too low,” she added.
