Pune district recorded 878 new COVID-19 cases till Thursday evening, taking its tally to 24,558. With two more deaths, the district’s toll has now touched 790.
Pune Divisional Commissioner Dr. Deepak Mhaisekar said, “Today’s massive spike comes after the district recorded its highest single-day surge of 1,251 cases on Wednesday. Of the total cases, 9,274 are active cases and there have been 14,494 recoveries so far. Of the active cases, 405 patients are critical.”
Since June 20, the district has been witnessing a surge of over 700 cases every day. With 40% of cases in Pune city being recorded outside ‘containment zones’, civic authorities have decided to take stock of the situation every week to redraw containment areas. Pune now has 105 micro-containment clusters. At least 30% of cases in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) have emerged from outside containment zones.
“While 65-70% of the cases being reported in the PCMC are still being detected in the containment zones, the remaining ones are emerging outside them. There are 12 slum clusters which are contributing to the majority of the cases,” said PCMC Commissioner Shravan Hardikar.
Despite a recovery rate of 59.02%, the drastic rise in new cases in the last few days has brought down the city’s case doubling rate, which now stands at 17.98 days — a significant decrease from last week’s figure of 20.77 days.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Solapur district — the worst afflicted after Pune in the division — has climbed to 273. Along with Pune’s fatalities, the death toll in Pune division — which includes the districts of Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur along with Pune — has now reached 1,134.
Pune division’s tally has reached 29,697, of which 10,652 are active cases, while 17,911 persons have been discharged till date. Solapur reported 83 new cases to take its total case tally to 2,727. Of these, 744 are active, while the number of recoveries stands at 1,710.
However, the startling surge in cases across the division came from Satara, which reported 95 new cases — its highest tally following a fortnight of low case surges. The district’s total case tally has now risen to 1,145, of which 355 are active cases with 743 recoveries. The district’s death toll stands at 47.
Sangli reported 16 new cases to take its tally to 399. Of them, 148 are active ones. With 18 new cases, Kolhapur’s tally stands at 868. While only 131 of these 868 cases are active (with 725 recoveries till date), Kolhapur’s number of active cases, which was steadily diminishing, has risen by nearly 100 in the last week. Both Sangli and Kolhapur have reported 12 fatalities each.
Meanwhile, cases continued to surge in Aurangabad district in the Marathwada region, which reported 249 new cases. The total case tally has breached the 6,000-mark to reach 6,031. With six fatalities reported on Thursday, Aurangabad’s death count has now climbed to 277. Of the total cases, 2,897 are active ones, while 2,857 persons have recovered so far.
