The good, the bad & the ugly

Highest no. of recoveries but also 12,000+ new cases & 390 deaths in a day

There were two highs in the Covid numbers for Maharashtra on Sunday -- the highest number of recoveries at 13,348, boosting the overall recovery rate to a healthy 68 per cent in the last 24 hours, as opposed to the 12,248 new cases in the same period and the most number of deaths in a single day so far, at 390 (the overall death toll is now 17,757). For the second consecutive day, the number of cases crossed 12,000-mark on Sunday. The total positive count is now 5,15,332. The state has breached the 5,00,000-mark 10 days after crossing the four lakh-mark on July 29, which had been crossed 11 days before.

Of the 390 deaths, 113 deaths were from Pune, followed by 112 in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, 47 in Nashik, 43 in Nagpur, 24 in Kolhapur, 19 each in Aurangabad and Latur and 13 in Akola. “Of the 390 deaths, 260 occurred in the last 48 hours, while 76 were from last week and 54 deaths occurred from the period before that and was updated in Sunday’s data,” said Dr Pradip Awate, state surveillance officer.

According to the public health department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the city reported 1,066 new cases and 48 deaths on Sunday, taking the total count to 1,23,397, with 6,796 deaths so far. Meanwhile the doubling rate has now increased to 86 days, while the weekly growth rate has dropped to 0.81 per cent.

The surge in cases in small cities and rural areas is a cause of concern for the state, given the limited capacity of health care infrastructure in these regions. “It is concerning that the cases are increasing in rural and small cities because they don’t have adequate infrastructure to cope with the load on the healthcare system. Even our major cities were not in a position to deal with such a health crisis. The state government is now augmenting health infrastructure in each and every district, along with the cities,” said health officials.

Dr Om Shrivastava, infectious diseases specialist and state task-force member said there may be many reasons for the high number of deaths. “One part is to do with the basics of infection control. It has also to do for a large part, with the immunity of Indians and there may be other genetic factors and all these may be coming into play. I don’t think we know enough about the virus at this time.It is a learning experience for all of us too,” he said.