THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: Maharashtra witnessed a tremendous rise in Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, with a total of 8,807 cases, the highest in 129 days (since 9,060 on October 18). Prior to this, it reported the highest in two months with 89 deaths (since December 24). With this, the total cases in the state jumped to 21,21,119 and the toll touched 51,937.
The last time the city had more than 1,167 cases of which 1,354 were detected to be positive which made Mumbai merely coming out of peak. It is also after 88 days since November 28 (1,063) that the city has added over 1,000 cases in a day. Mumbai’s total toll is now 11,458.
“The rise in cases is concerning as in critical cases the deaths is seen 7-14 days after a surge in cases” said Intensivist Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of the state Covid task force. Adding to it, municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said “Over 21,000 tests were carried out on Wednesday. The results show a rapid jump in cases and in positivity rate, which is at 6%. We are keeping a close eye on the situation. We have asked all jumbo facilities to reactivate beds”.
The epidemic situation over the state called for an immediate state cabinet meeting where a detailed presentation of data on the Covid-19 surge and the ongoing vaccination drive was made. They reported that despite a rise in average cases in February, the case fatality rate (CFR) is low. Nawab Malik, minister for skill development, said “CM Uddhav Thackeray has instructed all districts to increase testing and contact tracing”. Further, the health department said in the meeting “In January the daily average of cases was 2,973 and the case fatality rate was 1.7%. The daily average cases are 3,347 and total deaths reported in February are 775, taking the CFR to 0.4%”
Mumbai circle on Wednesday reported 2,018 cases which is the highest in the state, followed by Pune circle with 1,811 cases. From Vidarbha, the Akola and Nagpur circles is currently the eye of the storm and it witnessed around 1,679 and 1,323 cases, respectively. The Nagpur municipal corporation reported a dozen deaths as well.
“The coming 10 days will tell if the state was staring at a second wave” said Dr Shashank Joshi, another member of the state task force. He further said, “This surge has started from Vidarbha, and it is hard to believe that mutant variants didn’t have a role to play. Another plausible explanation for the rise was that people who didn’t get infected in the previous months have all started moving freely. Double masking is an absolute must to prevent coronavirus”.
