Nagpur: The district on Friday reported 6,489 cases, its highest single-day tally since the pandemic started. It was also the third day in a row when over 5,000 cases were recorded. Also, for the first time the city reported more than 4,000 cases in a day.
There were 63 deaths in the district on Friday, which were less than Thursday.
In Nagpur rural, cases reduced by around 200 as compared to Thursday. The active cases in district have mounted to almost 50,000 now, stretching the health infrastructure to its limits.
The district also saw highest-ever testing at 22,797, a jump of nearly 3,000 from Thursday. The rise in testing resulted in nearly 1,000 more positive cases as compared to Thursday.
The case count in April so far is 40,186, which is more than any other month, except September last year (48,457) and March this year (76,250). With the first nine days recording over 40,000 cases, April’s tally could well surpass March’s figures in the next one week.
Experts have observed that the current strain is highly infectious leaving entire families and housing societies positive in its trail.
Infectious disease specialist Dr Ashwini Tayade said this time the infectivity is really high. “Patients are symptomatic and their condition is worsening fast. Even those in their 20s are badly affected, which was not the case during the first Covid wave,” she said.
Dr Tayade said it was estimated that the surge would slow down at this point. “Now, it seems it is going to stay for some time. We really have to take precautions and stay alert,” she said.
However, public health officials said that people are voluntarily coming forward for testing and the figures don’t actually reflect a single-day trend. “These results are pending for more than two days. A variation is seen in rural and city numbers every alternate day. Sometimes the numbers of city shoot up and on other days it is the turn of rural. As the backlog of one area gets cleared, the number goes up. Yet, there is no denying that the positivity rate has gone up,” they said.
Meanwhile, late on Friday evening, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation released the bed vacancy data. Private hospitals have poor vacancy though more are being added. The NMC also added 10 CCCs, including 8 hotels, having 130 oxygenated beds.