Health volunteers performing temperature scanning for covid-19 symptoms at Gul Mohammed Chawl in Dharavi (File)
Maharashtra, Mumbai, Pune Coronavirus News Live Updates: Even as the state continues to remain the worst-affected in terms of Covid tally in the country, Dharavi, the densely populated slum in Mumbai, reported just one fresh case of novel coronavirus Tuesday, for the first time in three months. The last time Dharavi had recorded a single new coronavirus case was on April 5. According to the BMC, Dharavi has only 352 active COVID-19 cases as 1,735 patients have been discharged from hospitals upon recovery. Some 6.5 lakh people are estimated to live in Asia’s biggest slum which is spread over 2.5 square kilometres.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported 5,134 fresh cases and 224 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 2,17,121 cases including 9,250 deaths. Taking on the Cenre, the Shiv Sena 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.
Further relaxing the lockdown restrictions, the state government decided to allow markets and shops to remain open for additional two hours from July 9. Markets and shops can now remain open from 9 am to 7 pm, an extension of two hours from the existing closing deadline of 5 pm, in non-containment zones.
Corona Screening camp in Mankhud Transit Camp (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)
A simple visit to a toilet is not that easy for Covid-19 patients. In four months, doctors have noted multiple ‘fall episodes’, in some cases leading to fractures, as patients try to walk a few steps to the toilet.
Low oxygen saturation levels, acute weakness, no relatives at side, and hesitance of nursing staff to come to prompt aid in isolation wards have increased incidents of “fall” in hospitals in the last four months. ‘Fall episodes’, when a patient falls off bed or falls while walking to a toilet, are carefully recorded and registered as medico-legal cases. In the public sector with huge patient load, doctors say they inform casualty medical officers but the frequent incidents recently have made it difficult to report each case. “At most we record in the patient's case paper,” a doctor in Bhabha Bandra hospital said. Read more here
The state government will recruit 10,000 additional police personnel in order to relieve the load on a stretched force battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said on Tuesday that in light of the law and order situation created by the pandemic and the lockdown, the state police needs additional personnel. Read more here
The Covid-19 death toll in Mumbai crossed the 5,000 mark on Tuesday with 64 deaths recorded in the city. As many as 224 deaths were recorded across Maharashtra — highest in a fortnight. The last highest death toll was on June 23 when the state reported 248 deaths. Read more here