The coronavirus tally in Mumbai rose to 86,132 on Tuesday with the addition of 806 new cases - lowest singe-day figure in nearly two months - while the death of 64 patients took the toll near the 5,000-mark, the city civic body said.

With 806 new infections and 64 deaths, the tally of COVID-19 cases increased to 86,132, while the toll rose to 4,999, said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). This was the lowest number of COVID-19 cases recorded in a day in Mumbai in 55 days.

Earlier on May 13, 800 COVID-19 cases were recorded in the metropolis. In Mumbai, the first COVID-19 patient was detected on March 11, while the first death was recorded on March 17. According to the BMC, the number of recovered patients
rose to 58,137 as 985 more people were discharged from hospitals.

The COVID-19 count in Thane district reached 45,264 after 1,338 people were detected with coronavirus infection on Tuesday, while 45 deaths during the day took the toll to 1,353, an official said. The surge in cases in Kalyan continued as it accounted for 381 of the 1,338 new cases, followed by 296 from Thane city, while Mira Bhayander, Navi Mumbai and Ulhasnagar civic areas reported 160, 115 and 119 cases respectively.

"Thane city accounted for 16 of the 45 deaths in the district on Tuesday. Bhiwandi, for the second day in a row, did not report any deaths, and the new cases also declined to 30," he said.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra spiked by 5,134 on Tuesday, taking the total count to 2,17,121, the state Health department said. With 224 more patients succumbing to the infection, the death toll has gone up to 9,250, it said. A total of 3,296 patients were discharged from hospitals in the day, taking the number of the recovered cases to 1,18,558, an official release said. The number of active cases in the state now stands at 89,294, it said.

Mumbai's Dharavi area reported only one COVID-19 positive case on Tuesday for the first time since April 1 when the first case was traced to the area. The total count of cases from Dharavi is 2,335. The last time Dharavi had recorded a single new coronavirus case was on April 5, three months ago.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has revised its testing guidelines and will now allow COVID-19 test without a doctor's prescription. The civic body's move came after ICMR had instructed them to increase their testing capacity. BMC conducts an average of 4,000 to 4,500 tests daily. Earlier, a doctor's prescription was mandatory for having the COVID-19 test.

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar on Tuesday expressed the need to celebrate the upcoming Ganesh festival with simplicity.

In her appeal to 'mandals' or organising bodies, the mayor has asked them to celebrate the festival as an 'Aarogya Utsav'. Pednekar made this appeal while reviewing preparedness of 'Arogya Utsav' announced by famous Lalbaugcha Raja Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal. The mandal has cancelled celebration of the festival, beginning August 22, in a traditional manner in view of the COVID-19 crisis.

Instead, it would organise a blood donation camp and a plasma donation programme in coordination with the civic body during the festival period of ten days.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday dedicated to people new field hospitals having the collective capacity of 3,520 beds in Mulund, Dahisar, Mahalaxmi Racecourse and BKC. The online event was also attended by ministers Aslam Shaikh and Aaditya Thackeray, and Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) tweeted.

The dedicated COVID-19 health centre in Mulund, with the capacity of 1,700 beds, has been set up by the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), a planning agency of the state government. The 900-bed centre in Dahisar (east) has been set up with the help of the Mumbai Metro, the CMO said.

Burglars wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) kits broke into a jewellery shop in Satara district and walked away with 780 gm gold, police said on Tuesday. CCTV footage from the shop, located in Phaltan area, shows the burglars taking hold of the gold jewellery from the showcases and cupboards within, police said.

The footage of the 2-day-old incident during the coronavirus-induced lockdown shows the burglars wearing caps, masks, plastic jackets and hand gloves taking the jewellery from the display cases. A case has been registered at the Phaltan police station after a complaint by the jewellery shop owner, who said the burglars took away 78 'tola' (one tola is 10 gm) gold, police said. The shop owner said the burglars broke in through the shop wall, police said.

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Maharashtra government over two separate petitions seeking that services rendered by lawyers be declared as 'essential services' amid the coronavirus-enforced lockdown. The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) and a criminal writ petition, both seeking the same relief. A bench led by Justice Amjad Sayed directed the state to file its reply to the PIL within two weeks, while a bench led by Justice S S Shinde directed the state and the Bar Council of India to respond to the writ petition by Friday.

The PIL has been filed by lawyers Chirag Chanani, Sumit Khanna and Vinay Kumar through their counsel Shyam Dewani.

The district administration of Thane in Maharashtra has urged recovered COVID-19 patients to serve at treatment centres and hospitals to meet the need for more staff as coronavirus cases continue to rise, an official said on Tuesday. Nodal officer for Thane rural Dr Nitin Mokashi said if a person contracts coronavirus once, it is unlikely that he or she can get infected again after recovery.

Recovered patients can serve at hospitals and COVID-19 treatment facilities, which need more staff as infections continue to rise, he said. A 200-bed COVID-19 hospital in Binar needed the services of recovered patients who will be paid as per the government norms and also get other benefits, he said. There were plans to set up a similar 200-bed hospital at Dugad Phata in Bhiwandi and 400-bed facility at Ganeshpuri to meet the rise in COVID-19 cases in the rural areas of the district, Mokashi said.

The Maharashtra government Tuesday informed the Bombay High Court that at present it does not have any intention of allowing street vendors to resume their business in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, PTI reported. "They (street vendors) are an unregulated sector as of now and permitting them to carry on with their business amid the COVID-19 outbreak would lead to further spread of the disease among the society at large," Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told a division bench.The advocate general was responding to a public interest litigation filed by one Manoj Oswal, raising concerns of street vendors being without income due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Oswal's counsel argued that since hotels and restaurants are allowed to operate, street vendors should also be allowed to conduct their business activities.

Close to 70 per cent of Covid-19 positive cases in Pune Police are of personnel deployed in containment zones, said Police Commissioner K Venkatesham on Monday. As of Monday, the number of positive cases in Pune Police was 160, of which 43 are active and three have died to date. Pune city, at present, has 109 micro-containment zones, where a large chunk of the police force has been deployed at entry and exit points, and also to ensure adherence to safety norms in public places.

Venkatesham told The Indian Express, “68 per cent of cases among the police are of those deployed in containment zone duties. Those deployed in these high-risk areas are being provided with additional safety utilities. We urge people to follow the three-tenet rule of distancing, mask and sanitization, to lessen the burden of enforcement on the police.”

After delivering over one lakh face shields to police and medical personnel in Pune and other cities since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Pune’s Venture Centre has now come up with its own variant of N-95 face masks. Called MH12, the concept, design, and manufacture was completed within two months and the team is now gearing up to donate these masks to government hospitals and police, on priority.

The name N95 is given to the mask as it is able to filter up to 95 percent of the harmful particles, aerosols or droplets in the air. As per international standards, the Particle Filtration Efficiency (PFE) of such a mask is at least 95 per cent. However, in India, the PFE is fixed at 94 per cent. The MH12 masks have a PFE of 99 per cent, Venture Centre said. “There were two mask designs that were top contenders — one with a PFE of 96 – 97 per cent and another with 99 per cent. The latter was finalised for manufacturing purpose,” said Pravin Chavan, member of the Pune Masks Action Group at the Centre, who led the group making MH12. He also said the present manufacturing capacity of 5,000 MH12 masks can be scaled up if there is more demand.

With limited availability of oxygen beds and 1,000 to 1,200 cases surfacing daily due to increased testing capacity, the Pune district collector on Monday made a strong pitch for home isolation of asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.

“People are just not willing to isolate at home. Even if they are asymptomatic, the minute they test positive (for the novel coronavirus), they prefer to get hospitalised. Home isolation is the need of the hour and additional Covid care centres are being set up if there is limited space at some people’s homes,” said Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram, in an online address to the media.

Across Pune district, there are 29,403 positive cases, of which 17,329 patients have recovered and been discharged. Data till 3 pm on Monday, however, shows that there are 608 critical patients, of which 444 are in PMC limits, 126 in PCMC areas and others in rural and cantonment areas.

Over 60 per cent of Covid-19 cases in Mumbai’s northern suburbs, including Dahisar, Borivali and Kandivali, have been reported from highrises, according to the data released by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

As of July 5, Zone 7 – which covers R/South (Kandivali, Charkop), R/Central (Borivali, Gorai), and R/North (Dahisar) – has reported 7,625 Covid-19 cases, of which 4,847 (63.5 per cent) are from buildings or non-slum areas.

The BMC data also revealed that 1,815 buildings and floors out of the total 3,302 sealed have been reopened. Currently, 1487 buildings are sealed in Zone 7, of which over half (761) are from Borivali and Gorai areas, where 78 per cent Covid-19 cases are from highrises. In Zone 7, BMC has traced 68,198 high risk contacts while 1,42,721 have been identified as low risk.

More than 15 lakh people have been quarantined in Mumbai after contact-tracing so far since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city civic body said. Out of these, 5.34 lakh people were identified as high-risk contacts, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. So far, 13.28 lakh people have completed their 14-day quarantine. As of now, 2.46 lakh people are under home quarantine and 14,288 under institutional quarantine, the BMC said on its website. Out of 14,288 people under institutional quarantine, 11,409 are lodged at 328 CCC-1 (COVID care centre) facilities, which have a collective capacity of over 50,000 beds, while 2,879 are kept at 57 CCC-2 facilities, having more than 6,100 beds, the BMC said.

The Shiv Sena on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had expressed confidence that the battle against COVID-19 would be won in 21 days, but it has been over 100 days and the crisis still persists. The fight against COVID-19 is more difficult than the mythological war of Mahabharata, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said, adding that the battle against the pandemic will continue till 2021 as the disease vaccine won't be available before that.

The war of Mahabharata lasted for 18 days. Prime Minister Modi had exuded confidence (in March) that we will win this battle against COVID-19 in 21 days. But it has been over 100 days and the coronavirus still persists and those fighting it have become tired, the Shiv Sena said. We left Russia behind in terms of the number of cases. We will attain the number one slot in this unfortunate area if the number of cases continue to go up," it said.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday inaugurated the ‘Mahajobs’ portal, an industrial employment bureau that will offer job opportunities to the youths of the state. To register on the portal, the Shiv Sena-led government has made it mandatory for the youths to produce domicile certificates in order to seek jobs in various industries.

Industries Minister Subhash Desai said that the condition of the domicile certificate has been introduced to ensure that the “sons of the soil” get jobs in the industries. “Having a domicile certificate is one of the conditions put forth to register on the portal. It will ensure the compliance of the existing norm that 80 per cent of the jobs should go to local youths in industries,” he added at the online inauguration of the portal.

India's COVID-19 tally raced past the seven lakh-mark with 22,252 fresh infections on Tuesday, five days after crossing the six lakh post, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 as 467 more people succumbed to the disease, according to the Union health ministry. With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fifth consecutive day.

India has overtaken Russia to become the third-worst hit nation in the world, only after the US and Brazil. Follow latest news from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and across India