Maha’s Covid case count hits 20,000;Indiacrosses60,000

1,165 NEW CASES IN STATE Maha sees highest single-day toll of 48; fatalities across country go past 2,000

MUMBAI: Maharashtra crossed the 20,000 mark for coronavirus cases with the addition of 1,165 infections on Saturday, taking the tally to 20,228. It also reported its highest single-day toll of 48 deaths, taking the fatality count to 779. Of the new cases, 722 were from Mumbai, taking India’s most affected city’s case count to 12,864.

Across India, the number of fatalities due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crossed 2,000 and total infections rose above 60,000 on Saturday, doubling in roughly 11 days as the country now plans to resume more economic activity, while bracing for a spike in infections due to the increased movement. According to data compiled from numbers released by state authorities, there were 3,049 new infections and 117 new deaths recorded on Saturday. In all, there have now been 62,715 people sickened by Sars-Cov-2, which causes Covid-19, and 2,025 fatalities. Roughly 19,165 people have recovered from the disease.

The highest number of cases continued to be detected from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

Maharashtra took just nine days to go from 10,000 cases to 20,000, after taking 53 days for the first 10,000. The state reported its first case on March 9. Of the 48 deaths registered across the state on Saturday, 27 were in Mumbai, nine in Pune and eight in Malegaon. Pune rural, Nanded, Akola and Amravati saw one death each. Twenty-seven of the deaths on Saturday were of patients above 60 years of age, while 18 were in the age group of 40-59 years. At least 28 of them had high-risk comorbidities. Meanwhile, the state health department has added a disclaimer to its data, saying that 178 patients from the MMR have been added to the ICMR data of cases on its portal, but the reconciliation of the figures by the state was yet to be done. It has also stated that as collection of data is a progressive process, numbers could vary.