Maharashtra witnessed more than 100 COVID-19 deaths for the first time this year. On Tuesday, the state recorded 132 fatalities, which took its death toll to 53,589. It is the highest daily fatalities count reported in 2021. The previous highest was 155, which was reported on November 20, 2020.
Meanwhile, 28,699 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. It is the second highest daily case count recorded this year. With this, the total count has now reached 25,33,026. Meanwhile, the recovery rate of the state and city has dropped to 88 per cent and 90 per cent, respectively.
The city has witnessed more than 3,000 cases for the fourth time this month. 3,512 new cases and eight deaths were reported on Tuesday, taking the respective tallies to 3,69,426 and 11,600 so far. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), said “We can sustain this spike in cases because of our available medical infrastructure. Lockdown is not being planned in Mumbai, as it will bring all activities to a halt. Instead, we are going to increase the city’s bed capacity. Testing is being scaled up and vaccination is being accelerated.”
Experts have blamed both citizens as well as authorities for the steep rise in cases. People have become casual and are not serious about adhering to the COVID-19 protocols. “In addition, authorities are failing to enforce rules, as we are witnessing people not maintaining social distance and wearing a mask. There seems to be no effort by authorities to curb this,” said one expert.
Dr Deepak Baid, the president of the Association of Medical Consultants, said the reason for the rise in the numbers was that the asymptomatic patients were being asked to stay home. Currently, while there is a drop in the number of severe cases across the state, there are a number of asymptomatic patients who are not hospitalised, but kept in mandatory home quarantine for 14 days. “More than 80 per cent of the patients are asymptomatic and have been asked to be home- or institution-quarantined based on their priorities. Only 18 per cent of the patients need hospitalisation. But they are also discharged within seven days or once their reports are negative,” he said.