Daily Covid-19 cases go past 20,000 for first time in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: The surge of cases in Maharashtra and Mumbai continued with the state on Saturday crossing a new grim milestone of adding over 20,000 cases in a day. The state recorded 20,489 new cases on Saturday, its highest ever addition in a day. The state’s Covid case burden is now at 8,83,862, accounting for 22% of India’s tally. The only silver lining was that the state’s case fatality rate dropped under 3% (2.97%) on Saturday for the first time since March.
Mumbai’s spike too continued as, for the fourth day in a row, it added 1,737 cases to push its overall tally to 1,53,712. Maharashtra now has 2,20,661 active cases and Mumbai 22,978.

In the five days of September, Mumbai has added nearly 8,000 cases. AMC Suresh Kakani said the surge is likely to continue for the next 10-11 days. Deaths, though, continued to be under control with 33 mortalities recorded in the city on Saturday, taking the toll to 7,832. Civic officials said 21 of the deceased had comorbidities. Maharashtra, for the third day in a row, recorded over 300 deaths. Saturday’s 312 deaths increased the toll to 26,276. Of the deaths, 190 had occurred in the last 48 hours while 90 were from last week and 32 older than a week, the update said. The state’s previous highest in terms of cases was 19,218, reported on September 4 (Friday).
CM Uddhav Thackeray, who had a meeting with all ranks of BMC officials, expressed his concern over the increasing number cases in Mumbai. The CM cautioned that the festival season has started and will go on till the new year and instructed that the local authorities should prepare well.
An official said concerns about whether patients under home isolation were infecting other family members were also discussed, with some saying it could be responsible for some cases.
Civic chief IS Chahal pointed out that earlier, the death rate in the BMC and government hospitals together was 82%, which has subsequently reduced to 59%, whereas the death rate in private hospitals has increased to 39% from the previous 18%. The BMC commissioner also instructed all ward officials to concentrate on areas where most patients are found.
Of the 20,489 cases, Pune circle contributed the most (6,306) while Mumbai circle had 4,863. Nagpur and Nashik circles followed with 2,506 and 2,461 cases respectively. Thane city recorded 308 new cases and three deaths on Saturday. Kalyan-Dombivli recorded 467 cases and 6 deaths.
Recoveries saw a slight dip from 72.48% (on September 2) to 72.01% in the last four days. On Saturday, 10,801 patients were cured, taking the total to 6,36,574.