Maharashtra: State crosses 2 lakh mark, reports 7,074 fresh cases

With 1,163 new cases, Mumbai now has 83,237 cases. The city recorded 68 deaths due to coronavirus in the last 48 hours, taking its toll to 4,762. Dharavi, on Saturday recorded its lowest increase in cases at two, taking the total count from the highly congested and one of the largest slums to 2,311.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said that its reconciliation process of data of over three months was nearing completion. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region areas also continued to record an increase in number of cases. Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation recorded a spike of 633 cases — highest for the corporation till now, taking the total cases from the area to 9,804. With 396 new cases, Thane Municipal Corporation has recorded 11,610 cases. Pune city on Saturday recorded 1,120 cases, taking the count to 21,354 cases.

Of the 68 people who succumbed to Covid-19 in Mumbai, 51 had comorbidities, officials said. At least three of the deceased were below 40 years, while 41 others were aged above 60 years.

According to government data, 5,96,038 people are in home quarantine and 41,566 people are in institutional quarantine. So far, out of 10,80,975 laboratory samples, 2,00,064 have tested positive (18.51%). The recovery rate in the state is 54.02% with 1,08,082 Covid-19 patients discharged so far.

Meanwhile, BMC has started Sero-surveillance to monitor Covid 19 spread in Mumbai last week in partnership with NITI Aayog and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Three wards M/West, F/North and R/North were selected and surveys began in both slum and non slum areas. In one week 10,000 samples will be collected.

After poor response from people living in highrises, BMC appealed to the citizens residing in highrise buildings and societies of these three wards to coordinate and support BMC officials and volunteers approaching for this survey. So far, 2000 samples have been collected. “Monitoring the extent of exposure across populations and geographical locations is critical and hence this study uses scientifically designed random sampling methods. Our repeat serological survey will be critical for informed policy decisions and could also provide information about risk factors such as co-morbidities and age/gender specific susceptibility,” said professor Ullas Kolthur of TIFR.

Mumbai also began antigen testing on suspected Covid-19 patients from Friday. The test takes around 30 minutes and provides a quick result if a person is positive. If the report is negative, the case is referred for an RT-PCR test.

Four more deaths were recorded in Akola on Saturday, taking the district’s death total to 88. Meanwhile, the number of positive cases in Nagpur Central Prison has also risen to 103. In Akola too, the positive cases in jail have risen to 72. One death each was also reported from Amravati and Yavatmal on Saturday. Vidarbha’s overall positive cases tally has now gone past 5,000 mark with Akola and Nagpur contributing to over 3,000 cases each. Nagpur death tally stands at 25 while that of Amravati stands at 27. Buldana and Yavatmal have 13 and 10 deaths, respectively.

With inputs from Nagpur