Maharashtra: COVID-19 cases jump by 8,308 in 24 hrs; active cases soar to 1.2 lakh

Maharashtra on Friday clocked a whopping 8,308 new cases of Coronavirus disease, taking the overall tally of confirmed cases to 2,92,589, informed the state health department.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 11,452 after 258 patients succumbed to the illness in the last 24 hours. The number of recovered patients jumped by 2,217 in the same period to reach 1,60,357. As of July 1, there are 1,20,480 active cases in Maharashtra.

In the state capital Mumbai, 1,214 people were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Friday, taking the aggregate to 99,164. As per the state health bulletin, India's financial capital has 23,948 active cases while 5,585 patients have died. For some time now, Mumbai has reported less than 2,000 cases a day while the number of tests has remained fairly progressive, a sign that the outbreak is easing. Overall, Mumbai's doubling rate at 52 days is higher than the national average of 21.8 days.

Meanwhile, the total number of cases in neighbouring Thane district touched 71,345, of which it has 36,468 active cases, the highest in India for an urban district. Cases in Pune have also been going up rapidly and currently has 29,583 active cases. The tally of active cases in Palghar meanwhile stands at 5,162 while it is 967 in Nagpur.

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The state health department said the recovery rate in Maharashtra is 54.81% while the case fatality rate is 3.91%. Currently, 7,24,602 people are under home quarantine and 44,284 people in institutional quarantine. Furthermore, out of 14,84,630 laboratory samples, 2,92,58 have been tested positive (19.7%) for COVID-19 until July 17.

Expressing concern over the rising number of COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has said the government was planning to set up sample testing laboratories in all districts.

As per reports, the state FDA authorities have asked remdesivir manufacturers to increase the supply of the medicine amid surging coronavirus cases. It has also asked these companies to distribute 60% of their total supply for Maharashtra to Mumbai and Thane, given the high caseloads in the sister cities.

Meanwhile, state Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope announced that the Maharashtra government will form a committee to fix the prices of face masks and hand sanitizers so that no exorbitant rates are charged.

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