Maharashtra Covid lockdown news live: Second wave sees fewer cases among Nashik cops

While the second wave of Covid-19 wreaked havoc across the state, the city police force witnessed fewer Covid cases among its personnel compared to the first Covid wave last year. In 2020, as many as 441 police personnel attached to the city police contracted Covid-19 while seven of them succumbed to the infection. This year, during the second wave, 290 police personnel were infected and five of them died due to Covid. Deputy commissioner of police (headquarters) Pournima Chaugule attributed the fewer Covid cases among the police personnel this year to the vaccination programme for the police that was undertaken in February.

A total of 14 civic medical facilities in the district now have their own oxygen plants with a collective capacity to generate more than 7,000 litres per minute (LPM) of oxygen. Officials said the plants set up using civic and CSR spending — are a big step towards creating self-sufficient hospitals that won't need to rely on outside sources for oxygen during the pandemic. In April, the region had reported widespread oxygen scarcity with both civic and private units reporting serious shortages.

The HC directed the state and Centre to respond to a PIL espousing the cause of a policy for vaccination of mentally ill people. The PIL by actor-model T J Bhanu, argued by counsel Sarosh Bharucha, sought to ensure access to vaccination for those who may not be able to take their own decision, like the homeless and mentally challenged.

Around 40% of the healthcare and 60% of the frontline workers in Kolhapur city are yet to be fully vaccinated. Across the district, around 41% of the healthcare workers and 16% of the frontline workers (over 71,000) are yet to get their second dose of the vaccination. Vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers started in January and many other groups such as teachers and oxygen suppliers were added to the list later. As compared to last year’s Covid wave, very few healthcare and frontline workers got infected by Covid during the second wave.

The Centre’s approach in vaccinating people against Covid-19 should be like a “surgical strike”, the Bombay high court observed on Wednesday. In its12-page order, a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni said, “If one has to combat Covid-19 treating the situation to be war-like, the ‘near-to-home’ vaccination policy takes the war against the enemy to the borders but falls clearly short of a ‘surgical strike’ on the virus which is the need of the hour and could have been possible by administering vaccines to the bedridden. The policy, though formulated by experts, does appear to have a chink in the armoury to combat the enemy.”

A preliminary audit in Covid Care Centers attached to 19 government medical colleges in Maharashtra has revealed records of 11,301 deaths between January 1 and May 31, which is nearly one-fourth of all Covid deaths registered in the state (45,823) in the same period. The figures suggest that more than 40% of all casualties in these facilities, which are the tertiary care centres in their respective regions, may have been the outcome of patients not reaching on time–1,350 were brought dead to these hospitals, 2,280 died within 24 hours of admission, and 2,611 persons died within 1-3 days of admission. The remaining 5,060 persons died three days after admission.

"All three robots-SHR, MSR & DMR-are made in India. They are made to assist during pandemic & other emergency services like gas leak & fire," he says

With the addition of 454 new cases of coronavirus, the infection count in Maharashtra's Thane district has gone up to 5,22,979, an official said on Thursday. Besides these new cases reported on Wednesday, the virus also claimed the lives of 21 more people, raising the death toll in the district to 9,570, he said. The Covid-19 mortality rate in Thane stood at 1.82 per cent, he added. Details of recovered and under-treatment patients were not provided by the district administration. (PTI)

The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has warned of stringent action against the wedding hall and lawn owners along with the families hosting weddings if the Covid guidelines of the civic body are not followed. NMC commissioner Kailas Jadhav said a zero-tolerance attitude will be maintained for people violating guidelines during the wedding celebrations, especially as there are no wedding ceremonies allowed on the weekends in the Nashik district.

A police constable (49) attached with the Pimpri Chinchwad traffic branch succumbed to coronavirus-triggered complications on Wednesday, taking the toll in the Pimpri Chinchwad police force to five. An officer from the Pimpri Chinchwad police said on April 29, the constable complained of breathlessness and was admitted to a hospital. “He tested positive and was shifted to a hospital in Wanowrie,” the officer said. He was also suffering from a kidney ailment. “He was stationed at the Alandi-Dighi traffic division,” the officer said.

As many as 2,057 Covid-19 patients recovered in PMR on Wednesday as against the addition of 1,332 new cases. Active cases in the Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR) dropped to 14,912. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) limits had 3,539 active cases, the while tally of patients in the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation PCMC) areas dropped to 2,945.

Even as the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has been pressing for mandatory RT-PCR tests of owners and staff of all commercial establishments while lifting curbs, the local trader community has questioned the rationale behind such a move.

Wastage of Covid-19 vaccines in the district is currently at 1.7%, which is slightly higher than the state average of 0.5 to 1%. A June 2 report by the district health office said nearly 27.38 lakh beneficiaries have received their first or second shot of the vaccine and a 1.7% wastage may mean at least 40,000 doses may have been discarded so far. Separate data on Covishield and Covaxin wastage was not available. READ MORE

User accounts carrying out more than 1,000 searches for vaccine slots or those generating over 50 OTPs in 24 hours will now be blocked from CoWIN, a central official with the portal’s management team told TOI on Wednesday. The users (via their mobile phone numbers) will be blocked for 24 hours. READ MORE

Close to 6,500 (6,489) Covid-19 deaths have been reported across Maharashtra in the first nine days of June, but almost 60% of these are from data reconciliation in which unrecorded deaths from previous months and weeks are added to the tally. Dr Pradeep Awate, who heads the epidemiology cell of the state's public health department, said a high number of fatalities from the past are surfacing now because death reporting isn't quick in remote areas. READ MORE