Covid-19: 10 days into July, Maharashtra has added 2,000+ ‘old’ deaths

MUMBAI: Reconciliation of ‘old’ deaths is becoming a norm in July too. In the first 10 days of the month, the state has added as many as 2,224 reconciled deaths to the cumulative tally. In comparison, the count of ‘recent’ deaths added was 1,709 in the same period.
The state had begun the reconciliation exercise on May 17. Barring the last two days of June and first two days of July, the state has added old, unrecorded deaths almost every day in the last two months. While May saw 6,207 ‘old’ deaths being added to the toll, it rose to 19,059 in June. Overall, the state has added nearly 27,500 deaths through reconciliation since May besides the deaths reported in the 48-hour window. Pune contributed to the highest in reconciled deaths. Of the 194 added on Sunday, as many as 154 were from Pune district and 18 from Sangli, among others.
On Sunday, Maharashtra added 8,535 new cases, a marginal rise from the detections seen on Saturday to take the state’s overall caseload to 61,57,799. The state also added 156 deaths recorded over a period of 48 hours and some last week, in addition to 194 reconciled deaths. The state's overall tally has reached 1,25,878.
For the fourth day in a row, Mumbai reported below 600 (558) cases on Sunday and 15 deaths. The city’s total cases touched 7.3 lakh and deaths over 15,600. Active cases dipped to 11,423 from 11,558 on Saturday. Active cases in the state continued to rise—from 1.14 lakh on Saturday, the figure crossed 1.16 lakh on Sunday.
Akola circle did not record a single death on Sunday, while Nagpur and Latur circles recorded one death each and Nashik saw three fatalities. State officials said western Maharashtra and Konkan are still a cause for concern since Kolhapur circle alone reported 74 deaths, while Pune circle came next with 32 deaths.
Speaking at his hometown Jalna, public health minister Rajesh Tope said he has proposed to CM Uddhav Thackeray that some restrictions should be introduced to enter the state limits since the fear of a third wave is looming. “Entry into the state without Covid negative report should be restricted. Entry should also be made conditional to taking both vaccine jabs,” said Tope.