The surge in COVID-19 positive cases in Maharashtra continued unabated with 33 new cases being reported on Wednesday, of which the overwhelming majority, 30, were from Mumbai, taking the State’s tally to 335.
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Two new cases were reported from Pune and another fresh case from Buldhana district in Amravati division.
With this, Mumbai’s tally of positive cases has soared to 181 — with nearly 90 cases being reported in the last 48 hours while Pune district’s tally, with two fresh cases, stands at 50 and Buldhana’s tally has reached four.
The total number of positive cases in Thane and other municipal corporations, including Kalyan-Dombivli, in the MMR stands at 36, State surveillance officer Dr. Pradeep Awate said.
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The State has reported 16 deaths so far, with nine of these from Mumbai and two adjoining areas, including Palghar, and one each from Pune and Buldhana districts. A total of 41 people have recovered and have been discharged so far.
The last three deaths, that of a 75-year-old man and of a 51-year-old man in Mumbai, and of a 50-year-old in Palghar were positive cases with no history of foreign travel, authorities said.
A total of 704 people are presently undergoing treatment at various hospitals and isolation facilities across the State. “At present, 24,818 people have been directed home quarantine while 1,828 are placed in institutional quarantine facilities,” Dr. Awate said.
Buldhana medical authorities said a youth in his early 20s, who had apparently come in contact with the deceased person in that district, was the latest to test positive. They further said of the 32 samples sent to the Pune-based National Institute of Virology for testing, results of eight were awaited.
On March 28, a 45-year-old man had died of pneumonia in Buldhana. The next day, his test results returned positive for the virus despite the deceased not having any history either of foreign travel or of domestic travel.
Accordingly, the district administration has sealed the district while placing more than 60 people, who had allegedly come into contact with the deceased, in institutional quarantine facilities.
Pune division, which includes districts from western Maharashtra, has recorded 79 positive cases so far, with 50 from Pune and 25 from Sangli, of whom 24 are members of a family hailing from the district’s Islampur tehsil; and two each from Satara and Kolhapur.
A total of 16 people in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad have been discharged so far, said Pune Divisional Commisioner Deepak Mhaisekar, while stating that the samples of 104 persons are awaited.
While Pimpri-Chinchwad has not reported a single positive case for more than a week now, some measure of relief for Pune after the test samples of a 41-year-old city-based Aanganwadi worker with no history of foreign travel, who had previously tested positive for the virus, has now returned negative, following the 14-day isolation period.
The woman, undergoing treatment at the city’s Bharti Hospital, has been taken off the ventilator and moved to the ICU, said medical authorities, adding that her condition is improving.
