By PTI
MUMBAI: Maharashtra on Monday reported 15,140 fresh coronavirus positive cases, 7,304 less than the day before, and 39 fatalities, including 26 in the Mumbai region, due to the infection, the state health department said.
The new additions pushed the overall caseload to 77,21,109 and the death toll to 1,42,611, it said.
The total number of recoveries in Maharashtra rose to 73,67,259 after 35,453 patients were discharged during the day, leaving the state with 2,07,350 active cases.
On Sunday, the state had recorded 22,444 COVID-19 cases and 50 fatalities.
With 91 new Omicron cases being detected on Monday in Maharashtra, the tally of such infections went up to 3,221, the department said.
Out of these cases, 1,682 patients have recovered so far.
Of the new cases of the Omicron variant, 18 were reported from Nagpur, 11 each from Aurangabad, Raigad and Navi Mumbai, eight each from Mumbai and Thane city, five each from Sindhudurg and Satara, four each from Amravati, Pimpri-Chinchwad city and Pune city and one each from Yawatmal and Pune rural, as per the department.
The department said the overall case fatality rate in Maharashtra stands at 1.85 per cent.
The case recovery rate is 95.42 per cent.
The positivity rate is 11.94 per cent.
Currently 11,74,825 people are in home quarantine and 2,798 people are in institutional quarantine, the department said.
With 1,26,761 new tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the number of samples tested so far in Maharashtra rose to 7,46,29,449.
The Pune region recorded 4,408 new cases, followed by Nashik region (3,094), Nagpur region (2,480), Mumbai region (2,068), Aurangabad region (1,030), Kolhapur (832), Latur (637), and Akola region (591 cases).
Of the 39 new COVID-19 fatalities, the Mumbai region reported 26 deaths followed by six in Pune region, two each in Kolhapur, Latur and Nashik regions, and one in Akola region.
Nagpur and Aurangabad regions did not report any COVID-19 fatality, the department said.
Coronavirus figures of Maharashtra are as follows: Positive cases 77,21,109; fresh cases 15,140; death toll 1,42,611; recoveries 73,67,259; active cases 2,07,350, total tests 7,46,29,449.
In fresh guidelines to ease COVID-19 curbs in 11 districts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, the state government has allowed an increase in the number of guests at marriage functions, and also permitted swimming pools, water parks, theatres and restaurants to remain open with 50 per cent capacity subject to nod of the competent authority.
The fresh guidelines issued late Monday night have relaxed the curbs in 11 districts of the state where over 90 per cent of the eligible people have received the first dose of vaccine against COVID-19 and 70 per cent have received both the doses.
These 11 districts are Mumbai, Pune, Bhandara, Sindhudurg, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Satara, Sangli, Gondia, Kolhapur and Chandrapur.
As per the fresh guidelines issued by state Chief Secretary Debashish Chakrabarty, all national parks and tourist spots in the state will remain open, while spas can function at 50 per cent capacity.
There shall be no limit on the number of people to attend a funeral, as per the order.
“Marriages may have guests up to 25 per cent of the capacity of the open ground and banquet halls, or 200, whichever is lower,” it said with respect to the 11 districts.
However, these guidelines are “applicable either fully, or partly, only after the explicit permission of the SDMA (State Disaster Management Authority)”.
The District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) may decide on restrictions on movement during the night hours between 11 pm and 5 am, opening of local tourist spots with reasonable restrictions, and opening up of the weekly markets, as per the guidelines.
Nashik guardian minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Monday said tourist spots in rural areas and all types of hostels will be opened in the district soon amid a fall in coronavirus cases and asked the local disaster management authority to do the needful.
He was speaking after addressing a coronavirus review meeting here, which was attended by district collector Suraj Mandhare, NMC commissioner Kailas Jadhav and others.
“The number of patients has come down to 15,500 from 18,500, registering a decline of 3,000. The positivity rate has dipped to 27 per cent from the earlier 41 per cent. Schools have also reopened and students have not been affected yet. This is a positive scenario,” Bhujbal said.
Some heavily patronized sites like Brahmagiri mountain, Anjaneri mountain, Dugarwadi waterfall, Harihar fort, Pahine, Salher fort, Bhaskar fort and Ramshej fort, Bhavali dam, Vaitarana dam and Gangapur dam etc were closed for visitors from January 19.
Meanwhile, district collector Suraj Mandhare said the kin of 13,520 COVID-19 patients have applied for compensation, of which 8,959 applications have been scrutinized and sanctioned so far.
The district administration on Monday allowed offline classes for students of grades 1 to 12 and also those in colleges in Nagpur from February 1 with COVID-19 protocols.
Offline classes in schools and colleges will begin in rural as well as Nagpur municipal corporation limits.
Nagpur district collector R Vimla and municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B, after taking stock of the coronavirus situation, issued orders for starting in-person learning sessions from Tuesday in accordance with COVID-19 protocols.
Meanwhile, the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University issued a separate circular asking its affiliated colleges to start offline classes from February 1.
Schools and colleges were shut following a spike in coronavirus cases and emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Mumbai reported 960 new COVID-19 cases on Monday as daily count dropped below the 1,000-mark for the first time after December 27, 2021, while 11 more patients die due to the infection, the city civic body said.
With this, the tally of coronavirus infections in the city rose to 10,46,590, while the death toll increased to 16,623, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a bulletin.
In January 2022, Mumbai has reported 2,61,480 COVID-19 cases and 247 deaths as against 22,229 infections and 38 fatalities in December 2021, BMC data showed.
On the second day in a row, the daily COVID-19 cases have gone down in the financial capital.
The city has reported 200 less cases than the count on Sunday, when it had registered 1,160 infections and 10 fatalities.
The daily COVID-19 cases have dropped below the 1,000-mark for the first time after December 27, 2021, when Mumbai had logged 809 cases and three fatalities.
The city’s positivity rate dipped to 2.10 per cent from 2.25 per cent a day ago.
The rate indicates the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested.
In the last 24 hours, 45,618 COVID-19 tests were carried out in the city taking their cumulative tally to 1,52,89,441.
With 1,837 more patients discharged during the day, the number of recovered cases jumped to 10,17,288, as per the bulletin.
Mumbai’s tally of active cases dropped below the 10,000 mark to stand at 9,990, it said.
Mumbai’s coronavirus recovery rate stands at 97 per cent.
The case doubling rate has improved to 421 days, while the growth rate of COVID-19 cases between January 24 and 30 stood at 0.16 per cent, the BMC said.
The bulletin said 835 out of the 960 new patients, or around 87 per cent, were asymptomatic.
In the last 24 hours, only 106 patients were hospitalised and 30 put on oxygen support, it said.
Also, only 2,216 of the total 37,576 hospital beds earmarked for coronavirus patients are currently occupied in the city, according to the bulletin.
According to municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, the third COVID-19 wave in Mumbai started on December 21, 2021.
On January 7, 2022, the city had reported the highest-ever 20,971 cases.
Last year, Mumbai had recorded the highest 11,163 cases on April 4, 2021, during the second wave of the pandemic.
At present, the city has only six sealed buildings (where more than 5 residents have tested positive for coronavirus), but it doesn’t have any containment zone in slums and ‘chawls’ (old row tenements), the bulletin said.
