Maharashtra govt announces step to ease oxygen supply availability to treat COVID patients

On Monday, the Maharashtra government declared that the vehicles carrying oxygen for medical purposes shall be treated on par with an ambulance carrying only oxygen. Such vehicles will be treated as vehicles on emergency and disaster management duties for a period of one year. This development comes amid reports of oxygen shortage in some regions of the state grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Uddhav Thackeray-led government, this measure would help ease the oxygen supply availability in hospitals for the timely treatment of COVID-19 patients. This is one of the numerous steps taken to prevent the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Currently, there are 10,60,308 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India out of which 7,40,061 patients have recovered and 29,531 fatalities have been reported.

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Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally on the rise

On Sunday, September 13, Maharashtra recorded 22,543 new novel coronavirus cases. At present, there are 2,90,344 active cases in the state. 11,549 COVID-19 patients were discharged in the day.

416 deaths - 73 from Nagpur, 57 from Pune, 41 from Mumbai, 25 from Sangli, 19 from Satara, 18 from Kolhapur, 15 each from Solapur and Nashik, 13 each from Jalgaon and Bhandara, 12 each from Thane and Ahmednagar, 11 from Amravati, 9 from Chandrapur, 8 from Osmanabad, 7 from Navi Mumbai, 6 each from Vasai-Virar, Raigad and Akola, 5 each from Buldhana and Beed, 4 each from Kalyan-Dombivali, Aurangabad, Latur, Nanded and Washim, three each from Jalna, Hingoli, Mira Bhayandar and Palghar, two each from Ulhasnagar, Dhule and Pimpri Chinchwad and one each from Wardha and Nandurbar were reported on September 13.  

So far, 52,53,676 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 16,83,770 persons are under home quarantine, 37,294 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate, and fatality rate in Maharashtra stands at 20.18%, 69.8%, and 2.79% respectively. 

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