Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally rose to 1,80,298 on Wednesday with the addition of 5,537 cases, the state health department said. The death toll due to the virus reached 8,053 with 198 more people succumbing to the infection, it said.

As many as 2,243 patients were discharged post-recovery on Wednesday, which took the number of recovered persons to 93,154 in the state, it added.

So far, 9,92,723 people have been tested across the state and the number of active cases is 79,091, the health department said in a statement.

As many as 4,938 police personnel in Maharashtra have tested positive for coronavirus so far and 60 of them have succumbed to the viral infection, Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said on Wednesday. He said 38 of the 60 deceased were from the Mumbai Police force.

As many as 3,813 of the 4,938 infected police personnel have recovered from COVID-19 disease while over 1,000 others are currently under treatment, the home minister said in a statement.

The number of the offences registered under section 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has risen to 1,39,702 since the lockdown came into force, it said.

A total of 29,298 arrests were made for violation of the lockdown norms and 85,780 vehicles impounded. There have been 290 instances of assaults on policemen and 860 arrests were made, Deshmukh said. (PTI)

The number of coronavirus positive patients in Palghar, a predominantly tribal district of Maharashtra, crossed the 5,000-mark on Wednesday with the addition of 257 cases, the administration said.

The case count in the district now stands at 5,239, it said in a release.

So far, 134 people have succumbed to the infection, of whom three died in the last 24 hours, the administration said.

Areas under the Vasai Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) alone accounted for 4,137 positive cases, while the rural parts of the district recorded 1,102 cases, it said. (PTI)

As many as 18 fresh cases of COVID-19 have been detected in rural areas of Maharashtra's Nashik district, taking the tally to 4,270 in the region, a health official said on Wednesday.

Swab reports of 18 suspected patients came out positive for the infection late on Tuesday night, the official said.

Of the 4,270 coronavirus cases in the district, Nashik city accounts for 2,180, followed by Malegaon at 1,034, while 932 were reported from other parts, a release here stated.

At least 124 patients from outside the district had also received treatment in Nashik, it was stated. (PTI)

The Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra government to clarify whether it was ensuring that all coronavirus-related biomedical waste generated in the state was being disposed of in a safe manner.

A bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta issued notices to the Maharashtra government, the Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) in Thane district, and the state pollution control board on Tuesday.

The court said this was an "important issue", and asked the authorities to respond to a Public Interest Litigation which claimed that untreated COVID-19 biomedical waste generated by hospitals, pathology labs was being dumped at the Aadharwadi dumping ground in Kalyan, in violation of all the central waste disposal guidelines. (PTI)

The Pune civic body in Maharashtra has decided to conduct rapid antigen detection tests for diagnosis of COVID-19 after a couple of days, a top official said on Wednesday. He said the move will decrease burden on the National Institute of Virology (NIV) and other laboratories.

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has received one lakh rapid antigen testing kits, he said.

"We had placed an order of antigen rapid testing kits and received one lakh such kits. We will start conducting this test in the next couple of days after providing hands-on training to our staff posted in swab collection centres in the city," said PMC commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad.

He said the accuracy rate of the rapid antigen test is 90 per cent which gives out results within 30 minutes.

"The test is cost-effective one and there is no need for laboratory examination of the samples," Gaikwad said. (PTI)

The Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra's Thane district have nearly doubled in the last 15 days and risen considerably since May 1, a data released by the authorities revealed.

According to a health bulletin, Thane district, which had detected just 1,011 coronavirus cases till May 1, has recorded 33,324 infections till Tuesday night.

In the last 15 days alone, the cases in the district have nearly doubled from 17,008 to 33,324, it stated. The deaths too have seen a rise from 29 casualties till May 1 to 1,064 so far, the data stated. (PTI)

As many as 60 Maharashtra Police personnel, including 38 from Mumbai Police, have died of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the disease. (PTI)

Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray performs 'mahapooja' of Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur on Ashadhi Ekadashi, prays for miracle to overcome coronavirus crisis.

Section-144 has been imposed in Mumbai by Commissioner of Police Pranaya Ashok, prohibiting any presence or movement of one or more persons in public places or gathering of any sort anywhere, including religious places subject to certain conditions, in view of COVID-19.

Pune police on Tuesday registered a case of externment violation against a person with a criminal record, after his breach of order was detected by newly-launched application ExTra, a spin-off of the geolocation-based tool used for tracking home- quarantined persons.

The facial recognition and geolocation-based application ExTra (Externees monitoring and Tracking system) is a spin-off of the Home Quarantine Tracking System (HQTS), used initially by Pune Police and Maharashtra Police to monitor people who had been asked to remain in home quarantine. Pune City police had operationalised ExTra in the second week of June.

With India’s Coronavirus (Covid-19) infections’ tally climbing to 5.66 lakh on Tuesday, general insurers have received 28,000 claims for Rs 445 crore till Monday. In fact, claims have doubled in a week with most claims coming from Maharashtra and Delhi, insurance officials said. According to officials in the non-life industry, average claims for Coronavirus is around Rs 2-2.5 lakh in urban areas and around Rs 50,000-75,000 in semi urban or rural areas. In many cases, where the condition of patient is severe and have been admitted in an intensive care unit (ICU) the claims are in the range of Rs 6-8 lakh.

Along with the rapid rise of Covid-19 cases in the last fortnight, the claims on account of Covid-19 have also gone up in equal proportion in the country, they said. “Insurance claims have practically doubled during the week,” said industry sources. Read More

EVEN AS more police personnel from Maharashtra test positive for coronavirus disease (Covid-19), state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Tuesday said experts were being consulted to formulate a response to the rising number of positive cases and deaths in the force. With the addition of 118 cases in the last 24 hours, the total number of positive cases in Maharashtra Police force has reached 4,861, as per data shared by the state police headquarters on Tuesday.

Of these, 3,699 cops have recovered and 59 have succumbed to the infection. As many as 2,779 personnel are from Mumbai Police. Of them, 2,127 have recovered and 38 have died. Out of the total recovered personnel in Mumbai Police, 1,300 have reported back to work. Close to 6,000 police personnel across the state are either in home or institutional quarantine as of Tuesday.

Mumbai's Lalbaughcha Raja Ganeshotsav Mandal has decided not to hold Ganeshotsav this time in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. A blood and plasma donation camp will be set up in its place, said Lalbaughcha Raja Ganeshotsav Mandal according to news agency ANI.

"Instead of celebrating Ganeshotsav in a grand way, Labaughcha Raja Mandal will donate the amount to CM's Relief Fund. We will also felicitate families of martyrs who have lost their lives at LOC & LAC, " Sudhir Salvi, Secretary of Lalbaugcha Raja Ganeshotsav Mandal, said

Case registered against 6 police constables for not reporting to duty since last 2 months despite being served notice: Mumbai Police (ANI)

Maintaining that the Maharashtra government does not have the power to issue an order barring private unaided schools from hiking fees for six weeks for the academic year 2020-21 in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bombay High Court has said that it was mindful of the difficulties faced by the parents and that the schools may consider allowing them to pay the fees online and in reasonable installments.

The HC on June 26 had stayed for six weeks a May 8 state government resolution (GR) that had barred private schools from hiking fees. The GR had also directed the schools not to collect yearly one-time fees for academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21 and give parents an option to deposit the same on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Aggrieved by the decision, educational institutions across the state had approached the HC.

Meanwhile, India recorded 507 deaths and 18,653 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 5,85,493, including 17,400 deaths, 2,20,114 active cases, 3,47,979 recoveries, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Areas with poor civic facilities are more susceptible to the proliferation of Covid-19 cases, a study conducted by NGO Praja Foundation has found. The Foundation’s annual report on the status of civic issues in Mumbai, released Tuesday, states the top five administrative wards in Mumbai — L (Kurla), S (Bhandup), K west (Andheri), M-east (Govandi, Mankhurd) and R south (Kandivali) — with the maximum concentration of containment zones, reported the most complaints related to water shortage, drain overflowing, and unattended garbage.

According to the data compiled by the BMC’s centralised complaint registration system last year, 1,420 complaints on water shortage, of the total 3,084 recorded across the city, were registered from these five wards, the report states.

The Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC) and the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) will observe a total lockdown for 10 daysbeginning July 1 and 2, respectively, in view of the rising number of Covid-19 cases in these urban centres.

On June 3 when lockdown rules were eased in Maharashtra, TMC had reported 4,019 cases and 84 deaths. Since then, while the number of cases has increased by 139 per cent to 9,644, fatalities have jumped by 275 per cent to 315.

Mira Bhayander, meanwhile, has registered a 385 per cent jump in the number of Covid-19 cases during the same period – from 699 to 3,396 cases. Its fatality rate has increased by 861 per cent – from 13 to 125 deaths during the same period.