Mumbai records 97 Covid-19 deaths, highest in a day yet

The state is expected to cross a lakh cases this weekend. It has already touched the 94,041 mark, growing by 3,000 cases on an average daily.

The state’s death toll is 3,438. New cases in Thane has picked up, even as Pune remains slow in doubling rate. These two districts have maximum cases after Mumbai.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Wednesday said the city has 10,400 beds free for admitting Covid positive patients who are mild and symptomatic. Although there are enough beds in Covid Care Centre category II, there are fewer beds available for seriously ill patients in the city. The BMC portal showed there are 10 beds left vacant for ICU patients, and 22 for those needing ventilator support until June 9. In public and private Dedicated Covid Hospitals where seriously ill patients are admitted, there are 617 beds left vacant. The city has 27,109 actively infected patients currently.

“We are trying to increase ICU beds by 300 in the next 10 days,” Chahal said, adding that the city has recorded no deaths of renal failure patients suffering from Covid-19 due to shortage of dialysis machines in the last 20 days. Chahal said that testing has been “greatly revamped” since June 5. As per new guidelines high risk contacts can submit self-attestation for undergoing a test in a private laboratory without a doctor’s prescription.

From 14 days of ‘average doubling rate’ of coronavirus cases as of May 24, cases in Mumbai are now taking 24.5 days to double, data issued by the BMC showed. Meanwhile, the discharge rate in the city is now 44 per cent. Mumbai’s death rate had climbed to over 7 per cent in April. Following measures to ramp up intensive care and oxygen support, decentralised bed allotment in private and civic run hospitals, the death rate has dropped continuously and is currently at 3 per cent. According to the BMC, 7,600 beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients. The BMC aims to increase the total number of ICU beds by 300 in the next 10 days.

Civic officials said they have started noticing a spike in numbers of daily testing in Mumbai. “People are directly approaching private labs for testing now that prescription is not needed. Even those who are not at high risk are submitting self-declaration and getting tested,” said Prashant Gaikwad, BMC assistant commissioner. From 4,000 tests daily in entire May, a day after the testing policy was revised, on June 6 Mumbai noted 4,833 tests, on June 7 it was 4,954 tests and on June 8 it was 3,671 tests.

Apart from Mumbai that recorded 97 deaths, Thane recorded 15, Pune 10, Aurangabad 7, Navi Mumbai 5, Jalgaon 5, Ulhasnagar 3, Vasai Virar 2, Akola 2, and one each in Gadchiroli, Amravati, and Beed.

Maharashtra is conducting 4,688 tests per million population, much lower than Rajasthan that is doing 7,623 tests per million, and Tamil Nadu testing 18,209 per million population. Even then Maharashtra accounts for maximum Covid-19 cases, accounting for 33.5 per cent of the country’s burden.

The situation in Akola continues to be grim with two more patients dying on Wednesday, taking the death toll in the district to 42. Amravati district is the second biggest hotspot in the region with 17 deaths followed by Nagpur, which has 15 deaths from 862 cases. Amravati division consisting Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Yavatmal and Washim districts has a death toll of 67 from a total 1,450 cases. Nagpur saw its biggest single-day jump with 86 new cases reported from the city. The district’s cumulative tally stands at 863 cases.

Overall, Vidarbha has 2,542 cases with 1,703 patients discharged.

With inputs from Nagpur