Maharashtra continues to report more than 5,000 COVID-19 cases for the third straight day on Friday with the state reporting 5,229 new positive cases and 127 pandemic deaths. The state’s total number of positive cases has gone up to 18,42,587 and as many as 47,599 patients have succumbed to the disease so far. Mumbai, meanwhile, recorded 813 new coronavirus cases and 14 COVID-19 fatalities in the last 24 hours, increasing the total positive cases to 2,84,502 and death toll to 10,871.
As Maharashtra is anticipating a potential surge in the number of COVID-19 cases towards this month-end or in January next year, the weekly positivity rate of COVID-19 infections in 13 districts, including Mumbai suburban district, Nashik and Pune is higher than the state’s average of 7.57 percent. The cumulative positivity rate in 14 districts, however, is higher than the state’s average of 16.75 percent, according to the latest data of the health department. Positivity rate is a crucial indicator along with the doubling rate, case fatality rate (CFR), to show the spread of the infection.
According to the data, the state’s weekly positivity rate, as of December 1, was 7.57 percent, while Nashik district topped with 17.79 percent. This means for every 100 samples tested in Nashik district, nearly 18 people tested positive for the coronavirus. Nashik was followed by Gondia (13.53 percent), Ratnagiri (12.92 percent), Pune (10.21 percent), Thane (9.33 percent) and Mumbai suburban (9.02 percent).
Among the districts with a positivity rate lower than the state’s average was Kolhapur with 0.62 percent, Dhule (0.79 percent) and Jalgaon (1.56 percent). The island city of Mumbai had a weekly positivity rate of 6.73 percent.
Mumbai’s overall positivity rate was 15.32 percent, according to the data of the state health department.
Maharashtra, which has the second-highest CFR in the country, has 17 districts that have higher CFR than the state’s average of 2.58 percent.
Mumbai tops the list with highest CFR with 3.83 percent, followed by Akola at 3.68 percent, and Parbhani at 3.57 percent.
Interestingly, Pune district has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the state (355,698) and has a CFR of 2.11 percent. Thane district is the third-worst affected district in the state with 242,509 positive cases and a CFR of 2.21 percent
