Maha cases cross 10k with 583 new infections; death toll at 459
MUMBAI: The number of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra crossed the 10,000 mark and reached 10,498 as 583 people were diagnosed with the disease on Thursday while the death toll rose to 459 with 27 more fatalities. Mumbai, which now has 7,061 cases, has reported 290 deaths.
The first Covid-19 case in Maharashtra was reported on March 9 and took it 30 days to cross the 1,000 mark. Within 23 days, the state has now breached the 10,000 mark. The cases jumped from 1,000 to 2,000 in six days and doubled from 2,000 to 4,000 over the next six days. They rose from 4,000 to 6,000 in just four days. Another 4,000 cases were reported over the next seven days.
Maharashtra has on an average been recording over 500 new cases daily since April 19. Over the last 21 days, the state has recorded 6,855 new cases.
Officials insisted the situation is still under control as most of the new cases were detected through contact tracing. “Though a decline in new cases is yet to start, we can say the situation is under control as we are aggressively doing contact tracthey ing and most of the new cases are those who have been traced following the detection of positive Covid-19 cases,” said Dr Tatyarao Lahane of the state’s Directorate of Medical Education and Research.
State health minister Rajesh Tope said they are prepared for any situation and have set up 1,677 dedicated Covid-19 hospitals with 1,76,357 isolation and 7,248 intensive care unit beds. “These hospitals have been divided into three categories for asymptomatic, mild and serious cases. We also have around 3,000 ventilators, around 80,000 personal protective equipment kits and 2.82 lakh N95 masks.”
The state currently has 733 containment zones and around 10,092 survey teams have screened over 4.21 million people. As many as 10,695 people are at government quarantine facilities while 1,68,266 are home quarantined. As many as 1,773 patients have recovered so far, officials said. Of the 27 deaths reported on Thursday, 22 patients had also other diseases, added.
The mortality rate had come down to 4.36% (342 deaths till Sunday) from 7.41% (148 cases) on April 13. It continued to be higher than the national rate of 3.25% as of Sunday.
The state has so far tested 1,45,798 people and 1,34,244 of them have tested negative for the disease.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday ordered that no hospital can turn away any patient without examination after complaints that hospitals were denying admissions or delaying treatment.
In an order on Thursday, chief secretary Ajoy Mehta cited the Centre’s guidelines and said the state government has also ordered shifting of all asymptomatic patients without co-morbid conditions to Covid Care Centres. It added private hospitals can send such patients for home quarantine but after proper counselling.
The state has also allowed migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and others stranded in Maharashtra to move out and permitted intrastate movement for them with certain conditions. Mehta issued an order in this regard on Thursday.