For the second consecutive day, Maharashtra witnessed more than 60,000 cases on Friday, with the state reporting 63,729 new infections in the last 24 hours. The state’s tally rose to 37,03,584 cases till now. This is the highest single-day case reported since the pandemic outbreak last year.
The state also reported 398 Covid deaths in the last 24 hours, increasing the death toll to 59,551 till now. This is also the highest single-day death reported this year since after October 2.
Mumbai continues to witness less than 9,000 cases for the second consecutive day, with 8,839 new infections and 53 Covid-19 deaths being reported in the last 24 hours, increasing the total count to 5,61,998 positive cases and 12,242 fatalities so far.
The recovery rate has touched 82 per cent, with 4,63,344 patients recovered so far.
Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health official, said since the pandemic started they have been urging citizens that the second wave will be more infectious and will spread fast due to which the daily cases will keep increasing daily. “We know cases would increase but we have a silver lining that the death rate in Mumbai continues to be low. “While in absolute numbers, the deaths may seem to be climbing, the case fatality rate in Mumbai is less than 0.5,” she added.
Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state government’s task force on Covid, said Mumbai was showing signs of plateauing. “Stability is coming about in numbers though we may see an increase in deaths as there is always a lag between the peaks in cases and deaths,” he said.
He further said, “One cannot presume one is okay within a week as one could deteriorate in the second week. We are seeing people, mainly younger people, coming in with cytokine storms in the second week of the infection.”