Maharashtra COVID-19 doubling rate falls to 9 days, hotspot number now down to 5: Minister
MUMBAI: Amidst the blues, here comes some good news. Maharashtra, the worst-hit state by COVID-19 pandemic in India, has witnessed a fall in the growth of coronavirus cases and the number of hotspots in there has reduced from earlier 14 to five.
Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope said that the doubling rate of positive cases in Maharashtra has now fallen to nine days. "Our doubling rate has now reached 7.01 today. This means that the present figures will double after 7 days. But we will not allow that to happen and will bring it further down," Tope said in his online media address.
“The doubling rates of coronavirus positive patients are slowing down. Earlier, it was 3 days period, later five days and now it takes nine days. Every day 13 per cent of people are getting cured. While only one per cent patients are in critical condition, 83 per cent did not have strong symptoms and 17 per cent have soft symptoms,” said Tope, adding that the mortality rate has also come down from seven per cent to five per cent.
Tope further said, “The growth in the number of coronavirus patients is also coming down. Now there are only five coronavirus hotspots ― Mumbai city, Mumbai metropolitan region (that includes Thane, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan, Dombivali, Panvel etc), Pune, Nagpur and Malegaon. We want to bring down these hotspots to zero in coming days,” said Tope.
Mumbai has the most coronavirus cases and are confined to the slum pockets of Worli, Dharavi, Kurla, Andheri East and Andheri West. In areas such as Dharavi, home quarantine is of no use. So the administration will be using larger spaces like schools for institutional quarantine. The state will also arrange for oxygen stations there, the minister said.
Total coronavirus positive cases in Maharashtra have now touched 6427. In Mumbai alone the number has crossed 4000-mark.