Mumbai: Maharashtra and Mumbai reported highest single-day Covid cases on Friday. In the last 24 hours, the state recorded 926 cases – 30% of active cases are from Mumbai – which is the highest since October 2022. The total number of cases has now increased to 81,48,599. Meanwhile, the city also witnessed 276 new cases, which is the highest since September 9 when 251 cases were reported in a single day.
This comes on a day when India recorded 6,050 fresh Covid cases, the highest in 203 days, while the active cases have increased to 28,303, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
Union Health Ministry's video conference with states
Ahead of the nationwide mock drill at hospitals on April 10 and April 11, the Union Health Ministry held a video conference with states on Thursday to discuss Covid preparedness. Officials noted the gradual but sustained increase in Covid cases since mid-February.
The Centre told the states that although hospitalisation and death rates were low due to vaccination rates, the rise in cases required strengthened public health actions. It stressed upon the need to closely monitor the trend of influenza-like illnesses/severe acute respiratory infections. It said it was critical to maintaining optimum testing to identify emerging hotspots.
BMC's Executive Health Officer Dr Mangala Gomare said they had already started collecting data from hospitals for checking the preparedness of health infrastructure. She said there are 15 civic hospitals, three government and 35 facilities; which takes the number of available beds to 4,022 beds. She said 35 hospitals and 49 labs could collectively test 1.35 lakh samples daily.
States/UTs requested to expeditiously increase rate of testing
Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya said that irrespective of the new variants, the five-fold strategy of ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and Adherence to Covid Appropriate Behaviour’ continue to remain the tested strategy for Covid management. States/UTs were also requested to expeditiously increase the rate of testing from the current rate of 100 tests per million.
States/UTs were briefed that India has been witnessing a steady increase in Covid cases with average daily cases rising to 4,188 in the week ending April 7 from 571 in the week ending March 17; and weekly positivity rate notching up to 3.02% in the week ending on April 7.
Moreover, eight states are reporting high number of cases, with 10 or more districts reporting more than 10% positivity in Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi and over five districts reporting more than 5% positivity in Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana.
