At least 4,182 people were discharged from hospitals in the state, pushing up the number of recoveries to 1,44,507, the health department statement said.
Maharashtra, Mumbai, Pune Coronavirus News Live Updates: Maharashtra recorded 6,741 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and now has 2.67 lakh cases. With 213 deaths, the toll across the state went up to 10,695. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region accounted for 134 deaths Tuesday, which is 62 per cent of the total 213 deaths.
Although Mumbai recorded a dip in new cases Tuesday — 954 new cases as compared to 1,158 registered cases a day before, the capital is expected to reach the 1 lakh mark by the coming weekend. With the caseload of 95,100 infections, Mumbai recorded 17,442 coronavirus positive cases within a fortnight.
At least 4,182 people were discharged from hospitals in the state, pushing up the number of recoveries to 1,44,507, the statement said. As per the health department, 6,87,353 people are under home quarantine and 41,660 in institutional quarantine.
Meanwhile, state Higher and Technical Education Minister Uday Samant on Monday reiterated the state government’s stand that conducting final-year university exams as per the revised guidelines of the UGC would not be feasible due to the coronavirus outbreak. Samant said the state government was not against holding exams but was of the view that it would be improper to do so amid the outbreak.
A 38-year-old policeman died of COVID-19 in Maharashtra’s Palghar district on Monday, the police said. The deceased, a police naik, was a resident of Murbad taluka in neighbouring Thane district. He was attached to the Valiv police station at Vasai in Palghar. After he tested positive for coronavirus, he was admitted to a hospital, where he was undergoing treatment. Navadkar said 135 personnel in the district have so far tested positive for coronavirus and two of them have died.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), including Mumbai city, accounted for the highest 3,807 cases, taking the tally to 1,76,867.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to dispose a plea filed by the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), seeking relief for migrant workers availing special trains and buses in Maharashtra to reach their homes in other states, as the Supreme Court is set to hear petitions pertaining to stranded workers on July 17. It said a order will be passed next month subject to SC’s decision.
The KEM hospital has become the first government hospital in Mumbai to digitise the medical records of all its Covid-19 patients that can be accessed by doctors through an in-house mobile application.
Through the app, created free of cost by programmers of K J Somaiya college, all requisite information of a patient – medical history and progress – can be viewed at the click of a button. As soon as a patient is tested, an identification number is created and fed into the app. A doctor can access the app on his phone and just click on the patient’s name to check for details.
Notwithstanding slight operation glitches, industries in the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial areas reported mostly normal operations on the first day of the 10-day lockdown.
However, the refusal of petrol pumps to honour letters given by HR managers of companies, and a slight constrain in supply of raw material and consumables might create problems for these industries in the days to come.
The 10-day lockdown in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, which started from Monday midnight, has allowed industries to operate with regular staff strength. HR managers of companies were given authority to issue passes for employees so they can commute to work without problems. The movement of goods-carrying vehicles was also allowed without any checking.
Notwithstanding slight operation glitches, industries in the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial areas reported mostly normal operations on the first day of the 10-day lockdown.
However, the refusal of petrol pumps to honour letters given by HR managers of companies, and a slight constrain in supply of raw material and consumables might create problems for these industries in the days to come.
The 10-day lockdown in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, which started from Monday midnight, has allowed industries to operate with regular staff strength. HR managers of companies were given authority to issue passes for employees so they can commute to work without problems. The movement of goods-carrying vehicles was also allowed without any checking.
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope has said strict action would be taken against private hospitals charging exorbitant fees from COVID-19 patients and for other treatments. Tope was talking to reporters after a meeting with private doctors in the state's Jalna district on Monday. Asked about complaints that some private hospitals in Jalna were taking advance and hefty sums from COVID-19 patients, the minister said, "We will not tolerate it."
He warned of strict action against the hospitals overcharging COVID-19 and non-coronavirus patients. The state has included COVID-19 treatment under the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana, government's flagship health insurance scheme. The scheme also covers private hospitals, Tope said. The minister said he had received complaints that when COVID-19 patients become critical, some private hospitals refer them to government medical facilities.
"This is a serious issue and this should not be done," he said. Tope also said that private doctors in Jalna should work for seven days at government hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients. He said the 10-day curfew imposed in the city since July 5 was necessary to break the chain of the viral infection, and appealed to people to cooperate with the local administration to contain the spread of COVID-19.
The number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra's Amravati district increased by 21 on Tuesday to reach the 1,000 mark, an official said. With this, it has become the third district after Nagpur and Akola in Vidarbha region to have 1,000 cases.
Amravati had reported its first coronavirus positive case on April 4. A total of 648 cases have recovered so far while 35 patients have died, leaving the district with 317 active cases.
The number of COVID positive cases among the Maharashtra police force reached 6,393 on Tuesday, of whom 82 cops have till now succumbed to the disease. Of the 6393, 5099 have till now recovered and 1212 remain active cases. The number of cases among the two-lakh strong force has risen by 680 over the last one week and 11 more deaths have been reported in the same period. Of the 82 cops who have died due to COVID till now, six are officers and 76 are constabulary staff.
With lockdown being imposed in many jurisdictions across the state, a major chunk of police force will be deployed on the ground for its enforcement. In Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, which went into a lockdown on Tuesday, over 75 per cent of the force is going to the on the ground for the enforcement. Multiple police units like police stations and various branches have been facing the problem of severe staff crunch after detection of cases among their staff and subsequent hospitalisation of COVID positive cops and isolation of their immediate contacts.
The major chunk of the total caseload and deaths from two lakh strong Maharashtra police has been from the local police personnel in Mumbai, its surrounding areas and the personnel of the Maharashtra SRPF deployed in these high risk areas and who later repatriated to their home units. Death toll in Mumbai police alone 48 till Monday night. Other than Mumbai and the SRPF, a significant number of cases have been found among cops in Malegaon, Thane City, Pune City, Navi Mumbai and Solapur.
The Centre's direction to states to ensure all employers pay wages to their workers without any deduction during the lockdown cannot be applicable for those workers who remained unpaid for a long period even before the lockdown, the Bombay High Court has said. A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Riyaz Chagla said on Monday this while hearing two writ petitions filed by Premier Ltd, a heavy machinery manufacturing company from Pune in Maharashtra, and its employees union.
The company challenged an order of the industrial court directing payment of a part of wages to its workers,who had not been paid since May 2019. Its employees union sought compliance of the Union Home Ministry's order dated March 29, 2020 and a subsequent Maharashtra government resolution (GR) issued on March 31, 2020, directing employers to pay wages to all workers even during the lockdown period. As per the court order, the company decided to shift its plant from its original site to a new one in 2017.
The state labour commission granted a no objection certificate (NOC) to the company for shifting on the condition that it would pay full wages to its workers during the time the work remained suspended due to shifting of work. However, as per the plea of the employees union, filed through senior counsel Gayatri Singh, the workers remained unpaid since May 2019 till now.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday said the migrants' issue was not handled properly in West Bengal amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government there at one point of time even refused to permit labourers from other parts of the country to return to their homes.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Anuja Prabhudessai made the observation while hearing a petition filed by Centre of Indian Trade Unions, a Mumbai-based trade union body, raising concerns over the plight of migrant workers stranded in Maharashtra in the wake of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
According to the petitioner, the process laid down by the Maharashtra government wherein migrant workers have to register themselves to travel by 'Shramik Special' trains to their native states was cumbersome and should be simplified.
The Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra's Thane district has acquired 80 per cent beds in rivate hospitals for treatment of Covid-19 patients, PTI quoted an official as saying.
In an order issued Monday, municipal commissioner Vijay Suryavanshi stated that beds in paediatric intensive care units, NICUs and dialysis wards will be exempt. Private hospitals in the civic limits should admit and treat Covid-19 patients in the reserved beds and treatment charges should be as specified by the civic corporation, the order stated.
The commissioner said that action will be taken against hospitals that refuse treatment to Covid-19 patients or overcharge them. At least 13,240 coronavirus cases and 198 deaths have been reported in the limits of the KDMC.
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said strict action would be taken against private hospitals charging exorbitant fees from Covid-19 patients and for other treatments, PTI reported.
Covid-19 treatment in the state has been included under the government's flagship Mahatma Jyotibha Phule Jan Arogya Yojana scheme.
Tope said he had received complaints that when Covid-19 patients become critical, some private hospitals refer them to government medical facilities. He added that private doctors in Jalna district should work for seven days at government hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients.
Bollywood actor Sara Ali Khan’s driver has tested positive for coronavirus. However, the actor, her family and other staff members have tested negative for COVID-19. Sara took to Instagram to share the news. She wrote, “I would like to inform you that our driver has tested positive for Covid-19. The BMC was promptly alerted about it and he has been moved to a quarantine centre. My family, the other staff at home and I have all been tested negative and will take the necessary precautions.”
The actor added, “A sincere thank you to the BMC from me and my family for all their help and guidance. Stay Safe everyone!”
Monsoon related ailments are slowly picking up in the city with the total number of Malaria cases in BMC hospitals almost doubling in June compared to the previous month. In June, 328 malaria cases, four dengue and one leptospirosis case were recorded by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). No deaths have been recorded due to these ailments in the last two months.
In KEM hospital, 40 patients with malaria and dengue are currently admitted. “So far we have not found cases of co-infection of Covid-19 with dengue, malaria or leptospirosis. All our patients are stable” said Dr Hemant Deshmukh, dean, KEM hospital. The hospital has reserved a separate ward for water-borne infections. Each patient with dengue, malaria or leptospirosis is also tested for Covid-19. Doctors across the city are also testing patients positive for water-borne diseases for coronavirus.
“This is because the symptoms of the two are so similar. In the last one month we had few covid-19 patients who tested positive for dengue. They had joint pain and back pain could be managed,” said Dr Behram Pardiwalla, general physician with Wockhardt hospital.
The state disaster management authority, led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, on Monday reiterated its stand of not conducting final-year university exams citing increasing Covid-19 cases. “The number of cases are increasing day by day. So, it is not possible to conduct final-year university exams as per University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines,” said Uday Samant, Minister for Higher and Technical Education.
Samant said, “We will not conduct exams. Our stand is that it is not possible to hold the exams due to the current Covid-19 situation. The vice-chancellors of all 13 non-agricultural universities have written to the government saying that it is not appropriate to conduct exams in the current situation. Parents and teachers are also against holding exams immediately. So, it is not appropriate considering the health of the students.'
The municipal corporation has ordered lockdown in Pune in two phases from Tuesday till July 18 to control the spread of coronavirus, ANI reported.
At least 16,720 vials of Remdesivir have been used on Covid-19 patients until July 12 in Maharashtra since the pandemic began. Another 11,835 injections of Tocilizumab have been used to treat critical patients, data gathered from Food and Drug Administration shows. Read More
Maharashtra on Monday registered 6,497 new Covid-19 cases taking its total patient count to 2,60,924. With 193 deaths, the total fatalities in the state stand at 10,482. Mumbai, meanwhile, registered 1,158 cases taking its total patient count to 94,146. With 47 deaths, the total death count in Mumbai stands at 5,335. Read More
last three days, while positive cases were also reported from temporary prisons at Osmanabad and Parbhani recently.
Officials said five inmates lodged at the temporary prison in Yerawada, which is on the premises of a government hostel, tested positive. Two inmates tested positive and on Saturday, and three more on Sunday. The patients and their high-risk contacts were isolated, an official said. At present, close to 600 inmates are lodged in this temporary prison. Read More
Even as the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Monday eased some of the strict restrictions for industrial units, the civic administration decided to allow industrial workers to use two-wheelers to commute to their workplaces. The district collectorate also appealed to industries to extend their cooperation in tackling the pandemic. Read More