Maharashtra on Sunday crossed the 50,000 mark for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases with its highest single-day spike of 3,041, the first in excess of 3,000, taking the tally to 50,231. Of these, 33,988 are active cases, according to the state health department.
Mumbai also reported 1,725 new cases, its second-highest one-day spike on Sunday. With this, the city also breached the 30,000 mark and its tally now is 30,542 cases. On May 22, Mumbai had reported 1,751 cases.
The death toll of the state due to Covid-19 now stands at 1,635 as 58 more deaths were recorded on Sunday. Of them, 39 were in Mumbai, six each in Pune and Solapur, Aurangabad 4, and one each in Mira-Bhayander, Thane and Latur.
Of the deaths, 30 were above 60 years of age, while 27 were in the age group of 40 to 59 years and the remaining one was below the age of 40 years. Of the deceased, 40 had high-risk co-morbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments, health officials said.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, in his live address to the state on Sunday, indicated a further rise in the number of cases as well as fatalities in the coming days. “We have got a lot of success in the fight against Covid-19, however, the next fight is going to get more tougher, because there might be more deaths. There would be a rise in cases, however, there is no need to be afraid. We are prepared for that and are making more beds for the same and upgrading our health infrastructure,’’ said Thackeray.
This, the CM said, includes preparing 14,000 hospital beds in the city by May-end at various field facilities.
At the same time, the CM said that the lockdown may be lifted, but only in a phase-wise manner post May 31.
As Maharashtra crossed the 50,000 mark, the state has requested the Kerala government to provide 50 specialist doctors and 100 nurses on a purely temporary basis as its staff is working to its fullest capacity and the state need additional manpower to start field hospitals prepared at various places in Mumbai.
“We request you to provide 50 specialist doctors and 100 nurses on a temporary basis. These MBBS doctors will be paid₹80,000 per month and MD/MS specialist doctors will be paid ₹2 lakh per month, which include physician and intensivists etc, while trained trained nursing staff will be paid ₹30,000 per month. The state will also provide accommodation and meals to doctors and nurses. It will be responsibility of the state government to provide them medicine and personal protective equipment,” stated a letter issued by Dr Tatyarao Lahane, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) and nodal officer for Covid-19 to KK Shailaja, health minister of Kerala government.
Dr Lahane said that the help was sought after Kerala government offered to extend support to fight the pandemic. State health Rajesh Tope had a detailed discussion with the Kerala health minister a few days ago.
Overall, the government data shows that the state is experiencing a sharp rise in the number of cases in the last one week (from May 17). Over the past seven days, over 2,000 cases have been added every single day to the total tally.
The trend shows that the fresh cases of Covid-19 are soaring to a new level after every 10 to 15 days. For instance, between April 19 and 30, the fresh cases were in a range of 500 per day, but from May 1 it started rising and from May 6 to 16, the fresh cases were in a range of 1,000-2,000. From May 17, it again crossed 2,000 mark and since the past seven days, the new cases are in a range of 2,000-3,000 cases per day.
In May (past 24 days) alone, the state has reported as many as 39,899 cases, whereas the total number of cases registered in April was 10,201.
The first case of coronavirus was reported on March 9 and it took 30 days for the state to cross the 1,000 mark. For the first 10,000 cases, it took 53 days.
Officials said that the government is unsure by when the cases will start declining. “Though the cases are rising sharply, in most cases we know the source of infection as we are aggressively doing testing and contract testing. Several projections and predictions have been thrown around, but there is no clarity so far when the cases will start coming down. Most projections so far have also failed,” said a senior official, wishing not to be named.
The good news is that the number of recoveries in the state has also jumped to 14,600 as 1,196 patients recovered as on Sunday.
The mortality rate of the state has come down to 3.34% (1577 deaths) on Wednesday, from 7.41% (148 cases) on April 13. However, it continued to be higher than the national mortality rate of 2.93% (3,867 deaths) till Saturday, stated the data of the state medical education department.
On Sunday, the state also completed 62 days of lockdown that was imposed from midnight of March 23, a day before the nationwide lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was partially lifted on April 20 in the areas where there are no cases or minimal cases.
The health department also declared to have conducted 3,62,862 tests at various public and private facilities across Maharashtra. Of them, 3,12,631 people tested negative.
State currently has 2,283 active containment zones. A total of 16,913 survey teams, comprising doctors and assisting staff, have screened more than 66.60 lakh people.
Of the state’s 36 districts, Gadchiroli was the only one that was not having a single case till May 18. However, some migrant workers, who returned to the district from Mumbai, tested positive and now the cases there increased to 13 .
