Covid latest: Maharashtra records 2,940 new cases, 99 deaths; 51% fatalities in a fortnight

Maharashtra on Saturday recorded 2,940 new Covid-19 cases, the second highest single-day spike, to cross a grim landmark of 65,000 cases with the tally reaching 65,168, including 34,881 active cases representing 53.52% of all the infections registered in the state.

The state also reported 99 new deaths, the third-highest for a single day due to the disease, driving the casualty figure up to 2,197.

More than half of Maharashtra’s new cases reported on Saturday were from Mumbai --1,510 new cases. The metro city has now recorded 38,442 Covid cases, of which 20,845 are active. Mumbai’s highest single-day spike was registered on May 22, with 1,751 cases.

On Friday, the state had recorded 116 fatalities, highest so far. However, the government had clarified that 70 of them had died over the last 13 days but their test reports confirming the infection were only released on Friday.

Of the 99 new fatalities, 54 are in Mumbai, seven each in Vasai Virar and Panvel, six each in Thane, Pune and Solapur, three each in Raigad and Jalgaon, two each in Navi Mumbai and Kalyan Dombivli and one in Nagpur. Also, two patients, one each from Bihar and Rajasthan, died in Mumbai and Panvel respectively.

48 of the deceased were above 60 years of age, while 49 were aged between 40 and 59 years and the remaining two were below the age of 40 years. 66 dying patients also had high-risk co-morbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments, as per the health officials.

With the rise in fresh cases, the number of deaths has also risen by 1,129 in the last 15 days, more than 51% of total fatalities--2197-- in the state.

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As on May 29, the state’s mortality rate had increased slightly to 3.37% from 3.27% on May 26 compared to the current national mortality rate of 2.86%.

However, the mortality rate has shown a significant decline from the last month. On April 13, Maharashtra’s mortality rate was 7.41%.

A senior official who did not wish to be named claimed that the state had found 11 mutants of the coronavirus, which was behaving differently in different patients.

“Actually, we know nothing about the coronavirus. All we know is that it is extremely infectious and spreads very fast. The virus is behaving differently and is also mutating. We have found 11 mutants of the virus recently,” the official said.

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State health minister Rajesh Tope said that 83% of the total coronavirus patients were asymptomatic and only 15-16% patients have mild or moderate symptoms and only 1.5% patients are on ventilator. Overall the situation is under control and there is nothing to worry about, he said.

However, the rapidly rising graph of Maharashtra cases pose a challenge; data shows that 84.14% of the state’s total 65,168 cases, which in number translates to 54,836 cases, were reported in the last 30 days—an average of 1,827 cases daily. Since the last 13 days, the state has recorded over 2000 cases every day except on May 24, when it shot up to 3041, which was the highest single-day spike at the time. In comparison, only 10,201 cases were registered in the state in the month of April. To put the steep hike in further perspective, one should consider that the state’s first coronavirus case was reported on March 9 and it took 30 days for the figure to cross the 1,000 mark.

The health minister said the availability of beds in Mumbai was a bit of an issue which will be resolved in the coming days with the addition of 12,000 beds at 53 major private hospitals taken over by the state.

“In addition, 7,000 beds will be available after new field hospitals at Goregaon, Mahalaxmi race course, Mulund, Dahisar and Richardson and Cruddas Company at Byculla become functional in the next few days,” he added.

Despite the steep hike seen recently, Tope said the state’s doubling rate of the cases had increased to 17.5 days from 11.5 days till last week.

The number of recoveries in the state has also jumped to 28,081 with the recovery of 1,084 patients on Saturday. In percentage terms, it stands at 43.07%, said a health official.

The health department said it had so far conducted 4,47,772 tests for Covid-19 at various public and private facilities across Maharashtra.

State currently has 3,169 active containment zones and a total of 17,917 survey teams that have screened more than 68.51 lakh people. So far, 35,420 people have been kept in institutional quarantine in the state and over 5,51,660 people have been put under home quarantine.