MUMBAI: In many states across India, the second Covid-19 wave has almost subsided. But in Maharashtra, number of active cases are still more than one lakh. Pune, the IT and educational hub, continues to report an alarming number of cases.
Maharashtra has second-most active cases in India after Kerala. According to state health department data, there are 1,04,406 active cases. The highest of 17,106 are in Pune, followed by 16,630 in Thane and 13,087 in Sangli districts. Kolhapur has 12,826 active cases, while 10,528 active cases are in Mumbai. In active cases and positivity rate, western Maharashtra is leading. Of the 10 districts with highest active cases, five are from this region.
Last week, highest positivity was reported from the tribal district of Nadurbar (11.72%), followed by Kolhapur (9.85%), Sangli (9.20%) and Satara (8.23%). Interestingly, Mumbai’s positivity rate (1.78%) last week was the lowest among all urban districts. There are 10 districts with positivity rates higher than the state’s average positivity of 4.36%.
Of the total active cases, 37,898 patients are admitted in hospitals, which comes to around 35%. Over 70,000 (65%) patients have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic, while 15,552 (14.35%) are serious. A total of 5577 (5.15%) patients are admitted in ICU, 2242 (2.07%) are on ventilators and 3,335 (3.08%) on oxygen.
A senior minister from western Maharashtra, criticizing the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi, told this daily that the approach of the state government and its machinery is Mumbai-centric. “Every decision the government has taken and implemented is keeping Mumbai as the centre point. This is a wrong approach. Due to this, Mumbai and Thane have been witnessing fewer cases, while the semi-urban areas of western Maharashtra are reporting a high number of cases,” he said requested anonymity.
He added that earlier, the government used to conduct RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests, calculate the daily positive rate and on the basis of that, decide whether to relax or tighten restrictions. “Once Mumbai’s positivity rate came down, the government revised the decision and said only RT-PCR tests will be done. For Mumbai, they used antigen tests to bring down the positivity rate and now they are asking others to use only RT-PCR. This is not fair. There are many decisions taken by the government that are Mumbai-centric. As result, rural Maharashtra is suffering and continuing to report more cases,” the minister added.