State reconciles 1,522 fatalities
MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government on Thursday reconciled 1,522 Covid casualties and reported 393 deaths, taking the toll up to 103,748. Raigad reported the highest toll with 61 deaths, followed by Mira-bhayander and Kolhapur with 33 and 27 casualties, respectively.
Of the 1,522 reconciled deaths, 573 are from Thane, Pune 244, Nashik 86, Ahmednagar 67, Nanded 58, Beed 57, Yavatmal 57, Raigad 50, Nagpur 42, Jalna 40, Kolhapur 36, Buldhana 33, Sangli 32, Akola 21, Palghar and Satara 18 each, Chandrapur 15, Ratnagiri 12, Aurangabad 10, Gondia 10, Nandurbar nine, Parbhani and Solapur eight each, Hingoli and Osmanabad five each, two each in Gadchiroli and Latur, and one each in Amravati, Dhule, Sindhudurg and Wardha, according to the figures released by the state health department.
Amid allegations of delay in updating Covid fatalities, state health minister Rajesh Tope said they have given an ultimatum to all civil surgeons appointed in government hospitals to update toll figures within two days, failing which they will face action. “Civil surgeons appointed at government hospitals have the responsibility of updating all Covid deaths of private and government hospitals. They have now been given two days ultimatum to update the figures, else responsibility will be fixed and action will be taken against them,” Tope said on Thursday.
He made the statement following a news report that claimed 11,617 deaths between September 18, 2020 and May 20, 2021 have yet to be updated on the Covid portal. State health secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas, however, denied the claim. “We are not aware of the basis of the news report,” Vyas said.
Former chief minister and Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis tweeted the news and said transparency is important. “Covid deaths are not an issue of prestige or disrepute. It is important in the battle against Covid-19 pandemic and thus transparency in figures has its own importance. Do not hide Covid death figures as I have raised the issue time and again,” Fadnavis posted.
“We have been maintaining transparency in Covid-19 figures and thus our number of cases and deaths are relatively higher than any other state in the country. We have adopted a reconciliation process and are updating death figures on a regular basis,” said a senior official from health department.
With the rise in Covid deaths, case fatality rate is also going up. Between June 1 and 9, it was at 2.22%, up from 1.80% in May and 0.77% in April, according to a presentation prepared by the state health department.
The state has reported 2,994 casualties in the past 10 days. Last month, it recorded 20,324 fatalities, a record high since the pandemic hit Maharashtra in March last year.
Besides, Maharashtra is recording less than 15,000 cases for the past week. On Thursday, it reported 12,207 daily infections, a slight rise in daily cases, pushing the count to 5,876,087.
The state’s tally of active cases is also on decline and has reached 160,693 after 11,449 recoveries in the past 24 hours. It has been reduced by 539,165 cases since April 22 when the active cases had reached close to 700,000-mark with 699,858 active cases, highest ever since pandemic hit the state.
Mumbai clocked 655 cases, pushing tally to 713,495. It also recorded 22 fatalities, taking the toll to 15,055.
In the past 24 hours, the state tested 228,611 samples and had a positivity rate of 5.33%. However, the overall positivity rate of the state stood at 15.73%, according to the data issued by the state health department on Thursday.