Covid-19: Maharashtra toll past 40,000, makes up 37% of nationwide death figure

MUMBAI: Continuing with high Covid-19 fatalities, the state on Saturday added 308 deaths, taking the toll to 40,040. Over 37% of the Covid-19 deaths reported nationally were from the state, which added the last 10,000 deaths in merely 25 days. The state had 30,409 deaths on September 15.

The state case fatality rate was 2.6%, higher than the national rate of 1.5%. The state added 11,416 cases, taking the total caseload to 15,17,434.
The rise in cases in the city on Saturday was 2,203, a dip from the the sharp increase to 2,800-plus on Wednesday and Thursday. The Covid-19 tally stood at 2.27 lakh.
There were 48 deaths, taking the toll to 9,391.
"The number of cases had risen for a couple of days, but it could be due to some special collection drives we organise from time to time," additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said.
He said the Covid-19 situation in the city seemed to be under control, with the number of cases averaging around 2,200 and deaths at 45 a day. "We are trying to bring this death rate further down as every life is precious," Kakani said.
The BMC move of making smartphones available for video chats between families and patients was a step towards reducing the stress for patients. "By letting them interact with their families, we are trying to keep their morale high," Kakani said.
A BMC update said 14,842 tests were carried out in 24 hours. Of the 48 deaths, 36 patients had co-morbidites and 30 were above 60 years of age. With the daily number of recoveries and discharges at 3,074 patients, the recovery rate in the city reached 84%.
The doubling rate, too, slowed to 68 days. The overall growth rate of Covid-19 cases in the city between October 3 and 9 stood at 1.03%.
For over a week now, the state has reported more daily discharges than daily additions, and the trend continued on Saturday as 26,440 people were discharged, taking the total discharges to 12.5 lakh and the rate of recovery to 82.7%.
Active cases in the state were on the decline. There were a total of 2.2 lakh active cases in the state, of which 25,352 were in the city.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, who inaugurated a testing laboratory in Washim district, said the state had set up massive Covid care infrastructure in the past few months. "We started out with just two Covid testing labs and now we have over 400 of them. We have ample beds available to treat Covid patients, but if we all follow the health protocols, we won't need to put those beds to use. There is a need to bring in certain changes in our lifestyle," Thackeray said.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region added 4,203 cases and 77 fatalities, taking the tally to 5.2 lakh and death toll to 16,837.
Kalyan-Dombivli saw 334 new patients and six deaths, taking the case tally to 45,876 and the death toll to 896. New discharges numbered 472 and active patients, 3,521.
In Navi Mumbai, the Covid count reached 40,073 with 296 new cases. Discharge rate was at 89%. Navi Mumbai reported seven deaths, taking the toll to 809.
Panvel reported 165 Covid cases and a death, taking the total positive count to 21,312 and the death toll to 491.