Mumbai, (Asian independent) Maharashtra’s Covid-19 tally crossed the 33-lakh mark, while the death toll in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) zoomed past the 21,000-mark with over 30 lakh people under quarantine, as most parts of the state wore a near-deserted look on the first day of the weekend lockdown on Saturday.
On Saturday evening, after an all-party review meeting, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray warned that “there is no alternative to a complete lockdown” and said that a decision on this would be announced in a day or so.
Continuing in the 50,000 range, the state reported 55,411 new Covid cases on Saturday, down from 58,993 on Friday, and lower than the peak of 59,907 recorded on April 7, taking Maharashtra’s overall tally 33,43,951 on Saturday.
The state’s fatalities increased slightly, from 301 a day earlier to 309 on Saturday, compared to the highest toll of 481 (April 2), taking Maharashtra’s overall death toll to 57,638, the highest in the country.
Adding 9,330 cases – up from 9,202 a day earlier – the Mumbai tally shot up from 501,182 to 510,512 till date, six days after notching the highest daily infections of 11,206 on April 4. With 28 deaths, the total fatalities went up to 11,944.
The state’s recovery rate improved from 81.96 per cent on Friday to 82.18 per cent on Saturday, while the death rate worsened from 1.74 per cent a day earlier to 1.72 per cent, while the number of active cases jumped from 534,603 to 536,682 now.
The Covid situation overall continued to remain grim as a massive vaccine shortage loomed with many vaccination centres in the city and state shutting down inoculations temporarily.
Meanwhile, Congress President Sonia Gandhi reviewed the Covid situation in all Congress-ruled states and urged the Centre to provide more vaccines and medicines to Maharashtra.
The Mumbai Circle – comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts – notched 18,241 new cases, lower than the peak daily infections of 19,952 (April 7) – taking up the total to 10,64,221, while deaths zoomed past the 21K mark to 21,028.
Of the day’s 309 total fatalities, Nagpur led the chart with 43 deaths, followed by 33 in Thane, 28 each in Mumbai, Palghar and Nanded, 25 in Nashik, 15 in Pune, 8 each in Ahmednagar, Solapur and Gadchiroli, 7 each in Jalna, Latur and Gondia, 6 each in Sangli, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Akola and Amravati, 5 each in Jalgaon, Beed and Chandrapur, 3 each in Satara, Ratnagiri, Buldhana and Washim, 2 each in Wardha and Bhandara, and 1 each in Nandurbar, Kolhapur and Hingoli.
Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation shot above 3 million – from 26,95,065 on Friday to 30,41,080 now, while those shunted to institutional quarantine went up from 24,157 to 25,297 on Saturday.
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