Maharashtra Covid-19 case tally likely to touch 10,000 by Apr 30 According to official figures, the state has recorded 4,946 cases in the past nine days. Maharashtra took 30 days to cross 1,000 cases, after the first patient was reported on March 9.

Faisal Malik, HT, 28 April 2020, Mumbai: Maharashtra on Monday reported 522 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally to 8,590. With the state seeing an average of 500 new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases daily since April 19, the bleak 10,000 mark is likely to breached by Thursday (April 30).

According to official figures, the state has recorded 4,946 cases in the past nine days. Maharashtra took 30 days to cross 1,000 cases, after the first patient was reported on March 9. Since then, it has been a steady increase in numbers, said officials. The trends also showed that Monday was the 24th consecutive day the number of new cases has been in three digits, which is why 8,292 cases have been registered in April alone.

On Monday, the state has also completed 35 days of lockdown that began from the midnight of March 23, a day before the nationwide lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was partially lifted on April 20 in areas where there were no cases or were minimal in number. In Mumbai, the case count has gone up to 5,776 as 369 new cases were reported.

However, officials said that the situation is still under control as most of the new cases are from traced contacts.

“We can say that the situation is under control as we are aggressively doing contact tracing and most of the new cases are those who have been traced, following detection of Covid 19 cases,” said Dr Tatyarao Lahane, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER).

”It is true that we were expecting a decline in cases from April 21, which is not happening, but the rise is also not exponential and now we will have to wait for another incubation cycle of 14 days, which is ending on May 3, before reaching to any conclusion, Dr Lahane said. Two 14-day incubation cycles were completed on April 20, after March 22, when international traffic was stopped.

Meanwhile, the health department has conducted 1,21,562 tests at various public and private facilities across Maharashtra. Of them, 1,12,552 people tested negative. The death toll of the state also went up to 369 cases as 27 fatalities were registered on Monday. Of them, 15 are in Mumbai, six in Amravati, four in Pune and one each in Jalgaon and Aurangabad. With this, Mumbai’s toll also increased to 219.

Of the 27 deaths, 22 patients had co-morbidities. Of them, one was affected with HIV and another was suffering with cancer, said health officials.

The mortality rate of the state has significantly dropped to 4.24% (342 deaths till Sunday) from 7.41% (148 cases) on April 13. However, it continued to be higher than the national mortality rate of 3.13% till Sunday, stated the data of the state medical education department.

As the cases are rising, the number of cases recovered so far also jumped to 1,282 as 94 patients recovered on Monday.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said that the state is prepared for any situation. “We have set up 1,677 Covid-19 dedicated hospitals, where 1,76,357 isolation beds and 7248 ICU beds are available. These hospitals are divided into three categories — between asymptomatic, mild and serious cases. We also have around 3,000 ventilators, around 80,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) kits and 2.82 lakh N95 mask,” he said.

The state currently has 572 active containment zones. Around 7,861 survey teams, comprising doctors and assisting staff, have screened more than 32.28 lakh people.

It has also kept 9,399 suspected patients at government quarantine facilities, while 1,45,677 are home quarantined, stated health officials.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on Monday appointed four IAS officers — Anil Kawade, cooperation commissioner; Saurabh Rao, sugar commissioner; Sachindra Pratap Singh, animal husbandry commissioner and Kaustubh Diwegaonkar, director, Ground Water Survey and Development Agency (GSDA), who will help in planning preventive measures and their implementation to arrest the spread of coronavirus cases in Pune, where 1,027 cases has been registered so far.

The state government has also allocated Rs1,275.25 crore to distribute among poor, weak, deprived, widow and handicapped sections of society, who are beneficiaries under many government welfare schemes. The beneficiaries will get an advance pay of three months, considering lockdown restrictions, which led to loss of income. Of them, Rs130 crore has been received from the Centre while the rest of the amount will be paid from the state exchequer, said deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.