Maharashtra has witnessed one of the worst months this year by recording 6,18,366 corona cases in March compared to 5,93,192 cases reported in September last year.
27,918 new infections and 139 covid fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, pushing its tally to 6,18,366, with 54,422 deaths so far.
Mumbai has reported 4,758 new infections and 10 covid-19 fatalities on Tuesday, increasing its total count to 4,09,320, with 11,671 deaths so far.
Experts have attributed this drop to the lower number in Covid-19 testing in the last 24 hours. The civic body conducted 24,464 covid testings on Tuesday compared to 33,966 which was done just a day before.
Dr. Shashank Joshi, a member of the state-appointed task force said the state will see a spike in the coming days. “The numbers will increase and the state will break records in the coming days. Apart from non-compliance to Covid-appropriate behaviour, the other reasons for the surge is also increased testing and increased contact tracing in all districts,” he said.
However, the only silver lining in this second wave is that the death rate is still low, despite the increasing number of cases. The case fatality rate (CFR) in the state has also reduced to 1.98% as of Monday, as per data released by the public health department.
Officials said people need to follow precautions seriously and a careless attitude would bring more difficulties for the state. “We have been observing that most of the people have stopped taking the pandemic seriously and don’t care about social-distancing norms. This is concerning as they are not only endangering their lives but also of their families,” said a senior health official.
Dr. Subhash Salunkhe, chairman, communicable diseases prevention control and technical committee of the state, said the citizens should not be totally dependent on the covid-19 vaccine as it will not completely protect from the coronavirus. Following which they have to adhere to Covid norms. “People should follow all the guidelines issued by the state in the public interest as we cannot completely depend upon vaccines. It would be unwise to do so as we yet don’t know when it is actually going to be available and the level of protection it will give. We are only hoping for the best,” he said.