Maharashtra reporting over 3,000 Covid-19 cases daily since the past 20 days

Maharashtra’s battle against tackling the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak looks like an uphill task amid a daily spike in positive cases and July could see the peak amid the easing of lockdown restrictions in a bid to revive economic activities, the state authorities have warned.

Maharashtra has been reporting over 3,000 Covid-19 positive cases daily over the past 20 days.

On five occasions in the past 20 days, the Covid-19 fresh positive cases have recorded a daily spike of over 5,000.

Maharashtra has reported 1,69,883 Covid-19 positive cases and 7,610 deaths to date – the highest in the country on both counts.

On May 24, the state’s tally was 3,041 Covid-19 positive cases.

The viral infection has been on an upswing since June 17, as it had reported over 3,000 Covid-19 positive cases on a single day.

On June 25, Maharashtra had reported 4,841 Covid-19 positive cases, and on successive days till June 29, the daily count was 5024, 5318, 5,493, 5,257, respectively.

Over 2,000 Covid-19 positive cases have been recorded in the state for the past 44 days..While on May 17, the state’s tally stood at 2,347 Covid-19 positive cases.

On Sunday (June 28), it had recorded 5,493 Covid-19 positive cases – the highest single-day count so far.

On the same day, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had also warned of a surge in viral infections in July as part of the Mission Begin Again campaign that was rolled out on June 3 in a bid to revive economic activities amid the easing of lockdown restrictions that were in place since mid-March to contain the pandemic.

Earlier, state health minister Rajesh Tope, too, had made a similar assessment.

“There will be a surge in Covid-19 positive cases in July because of the opening up economic activities,” the CM had said on Sunday while interacting with the public via a social media platform.

“We are expecting a spike in Covid-19 positive cases in July, as the CM had earlier said, because of the easing of lockdown restrictions. Unlocking is being done in a phased manner because we anticipated a surge of the viral infection and we have taken adequate precautionary measures. The healthcare infrastructure has been ramped up to meet all challenges. It appears the Covid-19 peak projection in July is likely to hold good,” said a senior official, requesting anonymity.

On Monday, the state government also notified lockdown 6:0, which comes into effect from Wednesday and will be in place till July 31.

All civic body chiefs and district collectors have been empowered to enforce necessary restrictions within their respective jurisdictions to rein in the viral outbreak.

Long-distance travel for non-essential work has been further restricted in the densely populated Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which comprises nine municipal corporations and a Covid-19 hotspot in the state.

Mumbai Police has restricted movements of people within a two-kilometre (km) radius from their residences except for office-goers and those engaged in providing essential services.

The CM had also expressed his displeasure during a review meeting on Monday over the violation of social distancing norms and unnecessary overcrowding in public places.

“The public is found to be venturing out of their homes unnecessarily. This is the biggest challenge that needs to be tackled at all costs,” the CM had said during the meeting.

On Monday, the state reported 181 fresh Covid-19 related deaths, including 78 over the last 48 hours.

The case fatality rate (CFR) in Maharashtra was at 4.51% until Sunday, as it had reported 7,429 deaths.

Maharashtra’s CFR is the second-highest in the country after Gujarat CFR at 5.77%, or 1,809 deaths, according to the data shared by the state medical education department.

The state had successfully brought down the CFR to 3.26% on May 26.

However, the CFR rose to 7.41% on April 13 because of 148 deaths.

Source: Read Full Article