Maharashtra Covid lockdown news live: 2,350 people recover in PMR; 1,389 new cases

Cases of mucormycosis (black fungus) continue to be on the rise with Aurangabad district recording as many as 244 new patients and 34 deaths in June alone. The alarming rise black fungus cases has taken the progressive count of mucormycosis cases to 852 with 91 citizens, mostly those undergoing post-Covid recovery, succumbing during the second wave. The health issue of continuous rise in mucormycosis cases is now found to be compounded with a trend of increased mortality. Mortality rate among myucormycosis patients was around 9% by May-end, it has now touched11%.

The number of people recovering from Covid-19 per continued to outpace daily cases in the Pune Metropolitan Region. On Sunday, the region reported 2,350 recoveries against 1,389 fresh cases.

The supply of Covishield and Covaxin is expected to be streamlined from this week onwards, said officials from the public health services department of the Pune circle.

Dine-in service at 50% capacity will start at eateries in Pune from Monday, with owners promising to maintain strict Covid protocols. Many eateries will prefer reservations over walk-in customers. But several restaurateurs are unhappy with the 4pm shutdown regulation, saying their peak business is in the evenings.

Joint commissioner of Pune police Ravindra Shisve has said that from Monday (June 7), no e-pass will be needed for inter-district travel. An e-pass will, however, be required to enter an area or district marked as level 4 or 5 in the state guidelines.

The month of May had the lowest number of Covid vaccinations in the district since March despite the drive opening up to include large beneficiary groups such as the 18-plus category. After the vaccination drive opened for citizens from March 1, all priority groups became eligible for shots in May, including those in the age group of 18-44. But data from the health department revealed that nearly 5.06 lakh doses were administered in May — not even half of the approximately 14.15 lakh inoculations in April. The drive to cover everyone over 45 began on April 1.

The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has decided to set up an 86-bed dedicated Covid mother and childcare facility at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Cantonment General hospital in view of the possible third wave. The facility will have 10 paediatric beds, six high-dependency units and five neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) beds. The cantonment board has already prepared a proposal in this regard and forwarded it to the Ministry of Defence for seeking funds under PM Cares.

Rejecting interim relief, the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Saturday refused to stay the MBBS examinations to be conducted by the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) from June 10. Justice Avinash Gharote has directed that the 40,000 examinees must test negative on RT-PCR or rapid antigen test before appearing for the exams. The petition was filed by NGO Herd Foundation and a physiotherapy student through counsel Rahul Bhangde and Dhruv Sharma.

Usefulness of the CT severity score in the treatment of Covid is overestimated, experts have said. The score, which helps define extent of lung involvement, has high inter-observer variations, which means values can vary between observers seeing the same data, the experts said.

Though the district administration has decided to treat Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation and Pune rural areas as separate administrative units, giving a major relief to these areas in terms of restrictions is a tough call.

A day after the state government announced easing of restrictions across five levels, it was clear that while Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Thane fall in Level 3, where most sectors can be opened up but with restrictions, in the city’s neighbourhood, the Kalyan-Dombivli municipal corporation and Navi Mumbai civic body, are in Level 2 and can expect significant relaxations.

The Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations were on Saturday categorised under Level 3 of the state government’s break the chain order, paving the way for all essential shops to operate from 7am till 4pm every day and nonessential stores from 7am to 4pm on weekdays from Monday. READ MORE

With the addition of 621 fresh coronavirus positive cases, the infection count in Thane district of Maharashtra went up to 5,21,000, an official said on Sunday. These new cases were reported on Saturday. With the death of 37 more Covid-19 patients, the toll in the Thane district rose to 9,445, he said, adding the mortality rate is 1.81 per cent. The details of recovered and under-treatment patients were not provided by the district administration. (PTI)

The number of Covid-19 hotspot villages, which have 10 or more positive cases, reduced to 186 on Friday from 397 on May 19 in rural Pune. The rural area comprises 13 tehsils and 14 municipal councils. On April 28, the number of hotspot villages had increased to 465, which was the highest since the outbreak of the contagion last year.