Relatives comforting each other outside Jumbo COVID-19 hospital at Shivajinagar on Monday. (Express Photo by Arul Horizon)
The number of active Covid-19 cases in Pune city has been falling steadily for two weeks, but there isn’t much reason to rejoice as cases continue to increase in Pune rural areas.
As on May 3, areas in Pune rural had 27,114 active Covid-19 cases, with 9,065 hospitalised patients and 18,049 in home isolation. While the positivity rate in the rural parts of the district was over 40 per cent a month ago, it is still high at around 30 per cent now.
The spread of the infection in rural areas puts a strain on medical infrastructure in Pune city, where many patients come to seek treatment. “Last year, it was seen that the decline in active cases in rural areas in comparison to city areas was taking place at a gap of 15 days. We hope the same happens this time as well… city hospitals continue to be under pressure due to influx of Covid-19 patients,” said a district administration officer.
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He said efforts are on to contain the spread and bring down the high positivity rate, with smaller towns implementing strict lockdowns. One of them is Baramati, which will go under a strict seven-day lockdown from Wednesday to contain the ongoing surge. Only pharmaceutical and dairy shops will be allowed to run for two hours in the morning. However, industrial units in Baramati will be allowed to operate.
Pune Rural had seen 1,712 deaths due to Covid-19 from the beginning of the pandemic till the end of March. But 472 deaths were registered in April, taking the toll to 2,184 till April 30, which increased to 2,267 by May 3.
April also accounted for 64,697 of the total 1,54,707 Covid cases reported in rural parts of the district till now.
Of the total 97,309 active cases in Pune district, 40,701 are in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) areas, 21,619 in Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) areas, 6,296 in municipal councils and 1,579 in cantonment areas. However, the maximum hospitalised patients are from rural areas, with 9,065 admitted for treatment followed by 8,955 in PMC areas and 8,047 in PCMC areas.
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