The number of new Covid-19 cases per day in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) jurisdiction crosses those under Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)
Maharashtra, Mumbai, Pune Coronavirus News Live Updates: The number of cases in Mumbai, the capital state of Maharashtra, crossed 1 lakh on Saturday. Maharashtra’s tally breached 3 lakh-mark and reached 3,00,937 as the state recorded 8,348 fresh cases, the health department said.
Ahead of Bakri Eid and Ganesh festivals, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray reiterated that religious, social and political gatherings will remain prohibited in the state in view of the rising infections. Addressing collectors and municipal commissioners via a virtual meeting, Thackeray called for replication of the Dharavi model at other places in the state to control the coronavirus outbreak.
The Phase-1 clinical trials for India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin, started across the country on July 15. While 375 volunteers will be enrolled in Phase 1 of the human clinical trial, plans are underway to enroll a total of 1,125 for both phases. The vaccine has been developed by Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology and Indian Council of Medical Research.
Pune, Pimpri-Chichwad and some parts of Pune rural are under a 10-day strict lockdown till July 23, in an effort to curb the spike in cases (Express Photo: Ashish Kale)
The number of cases in Mumbai, the capital state of Maharashtra, crossed 1 lakh on Saturday. Maharashtra’s tally breached 3 lakh-mark and reached 3,00,937 as the state recorded 8,348 fresh cases, the health department said.
Ahead of Bakri Eid and Ganesh festivals, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray reiterated that religious, social and political gatherings will remain prohibited in the state in view of the rising infections. Addressing collectors and municipal commissioners via a virtual meeting, Thackeray called for replication of the Dharavi model at other plareces in the state to control the coronavirus outbreak.
The surge in COVID-19 cases in Pune district of Maharashtra since the last few weeks can be attributed to the use of rapid antigen detection tests, district officials said on Saturday. Simultaneously, the case recovery rate has gone up to 65 per cent while the mortality rate has fallen to 2.65 per cent, stated a report released by the district health officer on July 17. As per reports, Pune has emerged as a new urban COVID-19 hotspot like Hyderabad and Bengaluru. (PTI)
Even as Mumbai's COVID-19 case count is nearing the one lakh-mark, the recovery rate of the country's financial capital is nearly 70 per cent, which is seven per cent more than the national average, official data has revealed. A release issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on Friday said that there were 3,42,756 COVID 19 cases in the country (till Friday) and the number of of recovered patients was approximately 6.35 lakh, which was 63 per cent of the reported cases. (PTI)
Senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said that he has apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Covid-19 situation in Maharashtra, PTI reported.
Fadnavis said that the PM asked about the situation in Mumbai, Pune and other parts of the state. "As a leader of opposition, it is my job to apprise the government of the loopholes in the system and improvements required to be made. I have been demanding that testing in Mumbai should be increased," he said.
The BJP leader has been visiting parts of Maharashtra to monitor the coronavirus situation and the health care facilities.
At 2,275, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital is the largest private medical facility in the city to have treated maximum patients in the last three months from April 15 to July 15. Apart from Sassoon General Hospital, a government facility, two other private hospitals, engaged in Covid-19 treatment since April, are Bharati and Symbiosis hospitals. At Bharati hospital, 1,100 Covid-19 patients have received treatment, while Symbiosis has treated around 1,500 patients.
As Pune inches towards the 50,000-mark in total Covid-19 cases, despite the strain, medical teams are holding forth. Dr Dhananjay Kelkar, medical director at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, told The Indian Express on Friday that high-flow oxygen therapy was going to save lives.
Dr Kelkar added that the 800-bed hospital had set aside 400 beds with 40 in the intensive care unit (ICU) to treat Covid-19 patients. Critical care experts strongly feel that non-invasive oxygen therapy is effective. “Oxygen saturation levels on presentation are the difference between life and death,” Dr Kelkar said.
Dr Sanjay Lalwani, medical director at Bharati hospital, said the surge had just begun and would peak around September. He added that the hospital had 250 beds, and wards had been categorised as Covid wards with co-morbidities, Covid ward with oxygen beds, Covid ICU ward and so on.
As people look to resume outdoor activities, there is growing concern over the risks they face of novel coronavirus infection. But not all outdoor activities carry the same level of risk, and it is important that people are judicious in what they do once they venture out of their homes. This is crucial to keeping the epidemic in check as lockdown restrictions are progressively relaxed.
The critical thing to understand is that the risk to infection is directly proportional to the duration of potential exposure to the virus, and to the viral load that one is exposed to.
It is important to know the risks involved in different activities – and to carry them out depending on how essential they are. Based on criteria used by the Centers for Disease Control in the United States, and the World Health Organisation, here is an indicative list of activities graded according to the risk of infection they carry. The risk categorisation assumes that people wear masks and follow the usual rules of physical distancing.
TWO days after the committee appointed to probe the issue of poor quality of masks submitted its report, the civic administration of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Friday said it will recover the amount paid to suppliers for supplying sub-standard masks. However, the administration said no action will be taken against officials who failed to check the quality of masks before distributing them, drawing criticism from civic activists.
“Of the total 13 suppliers, two of them supplied poor-quality masks. We have decided to serve notice to them and recover the amount for the masks. If they fail to pay the amount, we will lodge an FIR against them, ” said Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar.
The PCMC had ordered as many as 17 lakh masks worth Rs 1.7 crore soon after coronavirus cases started spreading in Pimpri-Chinchwad in March-April. Of the 17 lakh masks, 15 lakh were distributed in slums while two lakh were distributed in the temple town of Dehu.
Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila kicked off human trials for their Covid-19 vaccines this week, with some of their centres vaccinating the first set of persons in what is expected to be a closely watched race for immunisation against the contagious virus. Both firms inoculated their first set of persons on July 15.
Since then, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna, testing Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, has injected nine participants with the inactivated vaccine. PGIMS Rohtak on Friday became the second of the 12 sites testing the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine to begin phase I of the clinical trials by vaccinating three participants.
Both sites aim to vaccinate 18-20 participants in the first round, 7-14 days after which a Data Safety Monitoring Board review is expected to take place.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Saturday said that as many as 1,34,33,742 samples have been tested in the country for Covid-19 till July 17, with nearly 3,61,024 samples tested yesterday.
A 25-year-old man was booked Friday for allegedly raping a woman admitted at a Covid Care Centre in Navi Mumbai, police said.
The Covid-19 test results of the accused, quarantined at the high-rise apartment complex Thursday after members of his family tested positive for the coronavirus, is awaited, police said. The municipal corporation had acquired 1,000 apartments at the complex to isolate contacts of Covid-19 patients. Police said the accused was housed at an apartment on the second floor of a 15-storey building. On Thursday, he allegedly climbed to the fifth floor of the building where other people, including the woman, were placed in quarantine.
Mumbai on Friday recorded 1,214 new Covid-19 cases taking its total count to 99,164. With 70 per cent of those infected recovered, Mumbai, however, has one of the best discharge rates in the state.
So far, 69,340 patients have recovered from the contagious disease in the city, which almost triple the number of current active infection cases — 23,948. With 8,308 new cases, Maharashtra’s total patient count on Friday stood at 2,92,589. The state’s total toll due to the virus stands at 11,452, with 258 deaths registered on the day. Read more here