Covid-19: Highest daily deaths, cases in rural, peri-urban areas, Maharashtra CM holds review

The daily caseload in the state rose above 30,000 after two days when 34,031 Covid cases were registered on Wednesday. The number of deaths declined marginally to 594.

In Mumbai, the BMC recorded 1,329 cases and 57 deaths—up from 961 cases and 44 deaths recorded on Tuesday.
Although the state’s daily caseload dropped by almost half over the last 20 days, state government officials said many concerns remained: the death rate is not dropping as quickly as the cases, and Covid-19 continues to spread in peri-urban and rural areas. On Wednesday, CM Uddhav Thackeray took stock of the Covid situation from district collectors ahead of a virtual conference with PM Narendra Modi on Thursday.

“Although Maharashtra and Mumbai are coming around, there are still many sick patients in hospitals. Right now, the focus is on creating e-ICUs, linking villages with towns and towns with cities in a bid to save lives in rural areas,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, who is a member of the state government’s task force on Covid-19.

On Wednesday, the highest number of daily cases was reported from Ahmednagar city (2,878), while Satara district registered 2,598 cases, and Pune rural and Solapur rural saw 2,551 and 2,130 cases, respectively. Amaravati, Buldhana, Sangli and Pune Municipal Corporation areas recorded over 1,000 daily cases each.

Joshi said the state is still two to four weeks away from stablising. “We cannot drop testing or it will lead to increase in positivity rate. Also, while taking decisions on reducing the restrictions, we have to ensure that people adhere to Covid-appropriate behavior,” he said.

According to the state government update on Wednesday, the state's caseload is 54.7 lakh and toll is 84,371. In the state capital, the tally since March 2020 is 6.1 lakh and toll is 14,373 deaths.

In the last 11 days, active cases in the state dropped significantly to 4 lakh on Wednesday, from 6.3 lakh on May 8. The city’s active cases too dipped to 29,445 from 52,874 on May 8.

State public health minister Rajesh Tope said the recovery rate of the state has improved to over 90% and the daily growth rate has dropped to 0.5%. Tope also claimed that the number of cases dropped without reducing the testing.

While five cities in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Palghar, Vasai-Virar and Mira-Bhayandar, recorded zero deaths on Wednesday, the highest deaths reported were in Kolhapur rural at 68, which is more than the Nagpur circle (53) and Mumbai city (57). Kolhapur region recorded 118 deaths in a day.