The surge in Pune’s COVID-19 cases continued unabated after the district reported 49 fresh cases over a 12-hour span, taking the district’s cumulative tally of active positive cases to 979, said health officials on April 26.
With the accretion of the new cases, the district has witnessed a rise of 105 active coronavirus cases over a 36-hour span. Till April 25, the district had reported five deaths, including that of a 68-year-old from Baramati who died during treatment at Sahyadri Hospital in the city’s Hadapsar area.
“In all, 26 new cases were reported between 9 p.m. Saturday and midnight, while a further 23 have been reported since then,” said District Health Officer (DHO) Bhagwan Pawar.
Till date, the district — including Pune city, Pune rural and Pimpri-Chinchwad areas — has reported 1,233 cases.
Of these, 979 are active cases still undergoing treatment in hospitals, 72 persons have died, while a total 182 persons have been discharged after effecting recovery, said health officials. Fortyfive of these cases are ‘critical’.
As per figures from the Pune Zilla Parishad’s Health Department till Saturday evening, the total of active positive cases was 930 of which Pune city had 860 cases, Pimpri-Chinchwad had 55 active cases (seven of whom are undergoing treatment in hospitals in Pune city), while rural areas in Pune district like Baramati, Velhe, Shikrapur had 15 cases.
Of these 930, a total of 721 cases are at present undergoing treatment in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)-run hospitals, 173 in Sassoon and BJ Medical College Hospitals, 17 in civil hospitals, 12 in rural hospitals and 49 in hospitals run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC).
69 deaths so far
Sixtynine of the 72 deaths have been reported from Pune city and rural areas and three from Pimpri-Chinchwad.
“Two days ago, Pimpri-Chinchwad witnessed a spurt in cases after 11 of 14 contacts of a case in the Rupeenagar area who had participated in the Nizamuddin Markaz religious conclave event in Delhi last month tested positive. However, the contact-tracing process was swiftly carried out and the situation is under control,” said PCMC Commissioner Shravan Hardikar, speaking to The Hindu.
Mr. Hardikar further said that as the number of cases within the PCMC had remained in check so far, plans were being mooted by the administration to gradually relax controls for industrial units within Pimpri-Chinchwad if the lockdown was lifted on May 3.
However, given the steadily rising cases in Pune city, it remained to be seen whether barriers separating the PMC from the PCMC would be lifted as there was a very real risk of the contagion spreading to the PCMC areas, he said.
On Saturday, Maharashtra had witnessed a record high of 811 new cases were as the State’s cumulative tally breached the 7,000-mark to reach 7628 while its death toll rose to 323.