Coronavirus in Maharashtra: For third day in a row, state sees highest 1-day jump

For the third consecutive day Maharashtra recorded the highest single-day jump in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases with 19,218 new infections being reported on Friday, increasing the tally to 8,63,062. The previous highest single-day cases were reported on September 2 and 3 which were 17,433 and 18,105 respectively.

Mumbai, meanwhile, reported the second highest single-day jump on Friday, with 1,929 new cases, increasing the total count to 1,52,024. The previous highest single-day spike of 2,077 cases was reported on June 27. The city also reported 35 Covid-19 deaths, taking the tally to 7,796 so far.

The Covid-19 death toll in Maharashtra has now increased to 25,964, with 378 fatalities being reported in the last 24 hours. Of the total deaths, 119 deaths occurred in Pune, followed by 72 in Kolhapur, 67 in Mumbai Metropolitan Region, 49 in Nashik, 26 each in Latur and Nagpur, 10 in Aurangabad and seven in Akola, while two deaths were from the other state.

Suresh Kakani, BMC’s additional commissioner, said the spike they expected will not be huge and there will be a little spike in the number of cases being reported daily, and it is because there are many relaxations. “During the Ganesh festival, many went out and this might increase our tally. Moreover, the active cases in the city are around 20,000 and in the coming days, it will be anything above 17,000. However our constant effort has been to increase the testing. Our capacity is to conduct around 1,4000 to 1,5000 tests daily and we are doing around 9,000 now,” he said.

Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of Maharashtra’s Covid-19 taskforce, said a small upward trend has been observed since the last week of August. “We have to ramp up the testing considering we are currently under testing and under tracing. We have to optimise the testing considering our capacity, which is not happening currently,” he said.

So far, a total of 44.66 lakh tests have been conducted in the state, of which nearly 19.32 per cent were positive. There are 14.51 lakh, people, in-home quarantine and over 36,873 in institutional quarantine.