MUMBAI: Maharashtra on Wednesday witnessed a significant rise in coronavirus cases, with more than 8,000 new infections coming to light in a single day after a gap of over four months, health officials said.
The state reported 8,807 cases on Wednesday, taking its total infection count to 21,21,119.
It had reported 8,142 cases on October 21 last year, after which the numbers had declined.
With 80 deaths reported on Wednesday, the state's fatality count rose to 51,937, the government said.
Of 80 deaths, 27 were reported during the past 48 hours, while 22 were from the last week.
The remaining 31 deaths were from the period before the last week.
Since February 10, the graph of new cases began to climb again.
The state had recorded 6,112 infections on February 19, 6,281 on February 20 and 6,971 on February 21.
On February 22 and 23, the state had reported 5,210 and 6,218 cases.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) recorded the highest 2,018 new cases among divisional circles in the state on Wednesday.
Nashik, Pune, Akola and Nagpur divisional circles reported over 1,000 new cases each during the day.
The number of patients discharged from hospitals in 24 hours dipped to 2,772 on Wednesday from 5,869 on Tuesday.
The total recoveries till now stand at 20,08,623.
Mumbai city continued to report the highest single- daycasesin the state with a spike of 1,167 on Wednesday.
Nagpur district (barring Nagpur city) and Amravati city in Vidarbha saw a daily jump of 818 and 627 cases.
Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad cities in Western Maharashtra reported a rise of 755 and 408 cases respectively.
Aurangabad city in Marathwada region reported 203 new cases, while in Yavatmal district and Akola Municipal Corporation, 179 and 150 fresh infections were recorded.
The total of cases reported in the MMR -- which includes Mumbai city and Thane -- till now has increased to 7,18,317.
The region has reported 19,789 deaths till now.
The Pune circle -- which covers Solapur and Satara districts, besides Pune -- reported a rise of 1,811 cases.
In the Akola circle -- comprising Amravati, Yavatmal, Buldhana and Washim districts, besides Akola -- in Vidarbha 1,679 new infections were reported.
The recovery rate in the state is 94.70 per cent, while the fatality rate is 2.45 per cent, the health department said.
Currently, 2,95,578 people are in home quarantine and 2,446 in institutional quarantine in the state.
The number of active cases in the state increased to 59,358 on Wednesday from 53,409 a day earlier.
With 80,861 new tests on Wednesday, the number of samples tested so far increased to 1,59,41,773.
Maharashtra's COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positivecases: 21,21,119; newcases8,807; death toll 51,937; discharged 20,08,623; activecases: 59,358; people tested so far: 1,59,41,773.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government on Wednesday instructed all district collectors and municipal commissioners to increase testing, a senior minister said after a cabinet meeting here.
The COVID-19 situation in the state was reviewed during the meeting, said Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik.
"An instruction was given to increase the number of tests," he told reporters.
On average, over 60,000 coronavirus tests are being conducted in the state over the last two weeks.
Officials were also asked to carry out contact tracing of coronavirus patients more vigorously, Malik further said.
The cabinet also discussed other measures for the prevention of the spread of the virus and the ongoing vaccination drive, sources said.
Maharashtra has witnessed an upward trend in COVID- 19 cases since February 10, with daily figures crossing 6,000.
On the other hand, Mumbai recorded 1,167 new COVID- 19 cases, the highest daily spike in about four months, on Wednesday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
The tally of cases in the country's financial capital thus rose to 3,21,698, while the death toll reached 11,453 with four new fatalities.
On Tuesday, the city had reported 643 new cases and three fatalities.
On October 28, Mumbai had witnessed 1,345 new cases, after which the numbers had gradually fallen.
Wednesday was also the first time this year when new cases were in four digits.
Earlier, the city had reported 1,074 cases on December 27, 2020, after which the daily increase had been in three digits and come down to around 300.
But both Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra have seen a spike in cases since the second week of February.
As many as 376 patients recovered in the city on Wednesday, taking the total of recoveries to 3,01,057, while the number of active patients also increased to 8,320 from 7,536 the day before.
The average growth rate of COVID-19 cases in the city went up to 0.24 per cent from 0.17 per cent on Tuesday, whilethe average doubling rate of cases went down to 294 days from 417 days.
The number of tests carried out so far reached 31,85,334 with 21,123 samples being tested since Tuesday evening.
The civic body, with the help of police and railway authorities, has launched a massive campaign to take action against the people roaming around without wearing masks.
On Tuesday, action was taken against over 22,000 persons for not wearing masks.
Meanwhile, 9,830 persons -- 4,565 healthcare workers and 5,265 front-line workers -- were administered COVID-19 vaccines at 34 centers in Mumbai on Wednesday, taking the total number of people who have got the jab to 1,99,912, officials said.
Of 9,830 people, 3,369 were administered a second dose, taking the number of people who have been given a second shot of the vaccine to 13,754.