COVID-19 outbreak: Day after the big spike, numbers dip in Maharashtra

A BEST electricity department worker is disinfected before entering the Worli red zone area on Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje

A day after reporting a massive spike in confirmed cases of the novel Coronavirus, the Maharashtra health department officials on Friday said the city as well as the state recorded a dip in infections. While Mumbai on Friday reported 242 new cases as against 522 on Thursday, the state reported 394. State health officials have, however, said this is not really great news at the moment as the low numbers need to be sustained for a fair period of time.

AS many as 11 deaths due to the Novel Coronavirus were reported from Mumbai on Friday and with 242 new cases, taking the city's total infections to 4,447. According to a report by the Public Health Department, Maharashtra has the highest number of cases in the country and ranks fifth in terms of mortality rate at 4.4 per cent.

Based on an analysis, the state department health officials said the mortality rate among people aged below 50 years is comparatively less and the highest mortality rate at 17.78 per cent was recorded among patients between the age group of 61 to 70 years.

Including the 11 deaths in the city, the state reported a total of 18 deaths with five in Pune and two in Malegaon.

Of the 11 deceased in Mumbai, two were from G North ward - a 73-year-old man from Ranade Road in Dadar and a 60-year-old woman from Gopinath Colony in Dharavi. The total count of the confirmed cases in Dharavi rose to 220 on Friday with five new people testing positive for the deadly virus, said the civic officials. An 86-year-old woman resident of Mahim has also tested positive.

Ward-wise data of confirmed cases indicated that G South, which includes Worli and Lower Parel, continued to have the highest number of cases - more than 530 - followed by E ward.

The L ward, which also includes the Kurla Bhabha Hospital, has the third highest count with over 310 cases. A civic official from L ward, however, said only 250 of them are from the ward while others are from Kurla Bhabha hospital.

Residents in Dharavi out to buy essentials on Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje

"Slum areas in Kurla have community transmission and on Friday we had another 40 cases primarily from areas like Sundar Bagh, Tunga village, Jari Mari, Mohini village and Kaju Pada," said the official.

Similarly, D ward, which includes Malabar Hill and Grant Road, reported around 20 new cases and civic officials from the ward said all the cases were scattered and not concentrated in one area. Fewer cases were reported in H West ward, which includes areas like Bandra, Santacruz and Khar, where only four new cases were reported.

Besides five staffer from the housekeeping team of the disaster control room, no one else tested positive on Friday.

Around 80 other staff members, who are currently quarantined, have been tested.

In Mumbai, civic officials said that of the total 4,447 COVID-19 cases, 1,795 were high-risk contacts of patients with the respiratory infection, and that they were detected through contact tracing and fever clinics.

Till date, 957 patients have been discharged across the state after full recovery.

6,817
Active coronavirus cases in Maha as of today

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