After 4 days, no. of new cases in state drop below 5,000-mark

After four successive days of recording 5,000-plus new corona cases daily, there was a seven per cent drop in new cases on Tuesday although the number of deaths, at 245, was the second-highest single day toll so far. On June 23, there were 248 deaths reported in the state.

In the last 24 hours, the state recorded 4,878 cases, taking the progressive count to 1,74,761, with 7,855 deaths until now.

“Ninety-five of the 245 deaths occurred in the last 48 hours, while 150 deaths are from last month, which have been updated to the progressive count on Tuesday,” said State Surveillance Officer Dr Pradip Awate.

According to the public health department of the BMC, there were 903 corona cases and 93 deaths in the city on Tuesday, bringing the total count in the city to 77,658, with 4,554 deaths until now. The mortality rate for the city is 5.61 per cent.

“Thirty-six of the 93 deaths occurred in the last 48 hours, while 57 were from the previous period. However, 79 patients had co-morbidities,” said Dr Daksha Shah, executive health officer, BMC.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which consists of three districts— Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban and Thane and parts of Palghar and Raigad—is one of the most congested places in the state. This huge swathe has turned into the biggest hotbed of Covid-19.

Between May 31 and June 30, the number of cases in the Thane Municipal Corporation has increased to 15,645 from 4,439, a 230 per cent rise. Similarly, in Bhiwandi Municipal Corporation, this number has increased from 134 to 2,041 (1,423 per cent) in the same period, followed by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (369 per cent), Vasai-Virar (441 per cent) and Panvel (364 per cent).

“A large portion of Mumbai's population travels to the MMR as it is economically dependent on the area. So, we not only need to control cases in Mumbai but also in the MMR,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, who is a member of the state's Covid-19 taskforce.

Currently, there are 106 laboratories for Covid diagnosis in the state – 63 government and 43 private. Of the 9,66,723 laboratory samples, 1,74,761 had tested positive (18.07%) until Tuesday. Currently, 5,78,033 people are in home quarantine and 38,866 people are in institutional quarantine.