Amid spread of the Delta Plus variant, a possible third wave of COVID-19 and commencement of the festival season, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday has urged the citizens to follow norms including face masks, hand wash and social distancing in a bid to curb crowding and avoid spread of virus infection. Thackeray strongly defended the state government’s recent decision to revise 'Break The Chain' order and relax COVID-19 restrictions barring few districts with high cases and positivity rate saying that it was to boost the economic activities while keeping focus on health of the citizens during the pandemic.

Thackeray, who chaired the weekly cabinet meeting, said the government is making efforts to increase the pace of vaccination to protect people from the outbreak of virus. He reiterated his appeal to the citizens to extend their cooperation to the state government in combating the virus. As of today, the state government has administered 5,07,52,443 COVID-19 vaccine doses.

The Chief Minister said the second wave of COVID-19 is under control due to a slew of measures taken by the government and also because of the cooperation extended by the citizens.

According to the Public Health Department’s presentation, there is not a single active COVID-19 patient in the tribal-dominated Nandurbar district in north Maharashtra while there are less than 10 active patients in Dhule, Washim, Yavatmal, Wardha, Bhandara and Gondia districts. Further, in eight districts including Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli, there are less than 100 active patients.

As on date, Satara, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Pune, Osmanabad, Solapur, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Kolhapur, Beed and Raigad have high growth in number of patients compared to the weekly average of 0.08% at the state level. On the other hand, Satara, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Pune, Osmanabad, Solapur and Sindhudurg districts are with high positivity rate compared to weekly average of 2.44% at the state level. The growth rate in COVID-19 patients in Kolhapur (0.18%) and Ratnagiri (0.21%) is alarming.