Covid-19: Maharashtra records 51 deaths, lowest since March 15

MUMBAI: For the first time since the peak of the second Covid wave in April, Maharashtra registered 51 deaths on Monday, the lowest single-day toll since March 15 (48). In the city too, daily Covid deaths, which had emerged as a cause for concern last week with 118 deaths recorded in five days, registered a drop to 10.

In Mumbai, daily cases (486) on Monday dropped below 500 for the first time since February 15.
In tune with the weekend trend, the state recorded below 7,000 cases on Monday (6,740), similar to last Monday (6,727). State government officials said the dip in cases was due to reduced testing over the weekend. The state conducted 1.7 lakh tests on Sunday, as against the average 2.4 lakh tests during weekdays. With this, the total cases in the state touched 61 lakh and the deaths rose to 1,23,136 with the addition of 55 previous deaths. Mumbai’s case tally touched 7.3 lakh with 15,554 deaths.
“The daily caseload in the city is likely to fall further. We are getting near-zero daily test positivity rate with rapid antigen tests. All our positive cases are coming from RT-PCR tests,” said BMC additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani.
Talking about deaths, he said: “We are auditing last week’s spike in deaths and the report should be ready in a couple of days, but the initial causes seem to be late reporting and late referral from private hospitals to government centres… If a private hospital is found to be at fault, we will drop it from Covid service.”
Health minister Rajesh Tope said with cases coming down, there is low enthusiasm for getting vaccinated. “The severity of the third wave can be reduced if a large number of people are vaccinated. Districts which are low on the vaccination targets will be given more doses to ensure that they bring people to the centres,” said Tope.