Atleast four deaths and another big surge of 157 new COVID-19 positive cases was reported from Pune district on Tuesday as the district’s total tally of cases (including deaths and recoveries) to 4,280 while the total death toll rose to 215.
Of these, 1,996 were active positive cases while a total 2,069 persons had been discharged thus far, said Pune Divisional Commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar.
With this surge, Pune district has reported nearly 800 new cases since the last four days. The bulk of the new cases were reported from five highly-infected wards within Pune city which include Bhavani Peth, the slum cluster in the Dhole-Patil Road area, Yerwada-Kalas-Dhanori, Kasba-Vishrambaugwada and Shivajinagar-Ghole Road.
The cumulative cases in these wards account for more than 60% of the district’s total cases.
Along with the total fatalities reported from Pune district, the death toll in Pune division — which includes the districts of Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur along with Pune — has risen to 248, with Solapur reporting two more deaths to take its toll to 28.
The cumulative tally in the division has now risen to 4,996 of which 2,352 are active cases with 172 among these in a critical condition. A total 2,355 persons in the division (including recoveries in Pune) have been discharged till date.
A worrying development was the sharp surge in new cases in Kolhapur and Solapur districts, with each reporting 40 and 53 new cases respectively.
After Pune, Solapur has emerged as the division’s virus hotspot, with its total tally currently standing at 443 cases.
Authorities said that till now, the samples of 4,673 persons had been sent for testing of which the results of 4,428 had been received. Of the remaining 255 cases, 28 had died while the sample results of 227 were awaited.
“Of these 4,428 samples, 3,993 have returned negative and the rest 443 positive,” said a district official.
Kolhapur, which had seemingly reined in the contagion during the better part of the lockdown period, has seen an alarming rise in cases following relaxation of inter-district travel norms.
Kolhapur reported as many as 40 new cases since yesterday night, taking its total to 83 of whom 68 are active cases. Authorities said that nearly 60 new cases have been reported in the last six days itself.
Kolhapur District Collector Daulat Desai said that the surge was attributable to the increased inter-district movement, with several people from Mumbai, Pune and other areas who were stranded during the lockdown, swarming back into their homes in Kolhapur and flouting quarantine norms.
Satara recorded eight new cases since yesterday evening, taking the total tally to 146 of which 73 are active.
Meanwhile, the death of a 65-year-old person suffering from co-morbidities was reported from Aurangabad district in the State’s Marathwada region, taking the district’s death toll to 35 till date.
The district also witnessed a surge in 51 new cases to take its cumulative case tally to 1,073.
