MUMBAI: Thankfully, Covid-19 cases have been decreasing in Mumbai and Maharashtra. Is the peak of the third wave over? Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope had said mid-January would see the peak and experts had said it would subside gradually.
In Maharashtra, daily positive cases rose to 40,000 last week.
This week, this has been below 35,000 for two days. In Mumbai, after crossing the 20,000 mark, daily cases declined to 11,647 on Tuesday.
According to the Maharashtra health department data, 34,424 positive cases and 22 deaths were reported on January 11. A day earlier, it was 33,470 and eight deaths, while on January 9 there were 44,388 positive cases and 12 deaths.
In Mumbai on the other hand, 20,181 positive cases and four deaths were reported on January 6. On January 7, this was 20,971 and six.
Interestingly, on January 9, positive cases declined slightly to 19,474, while there were seven deaths.
On January 10, it went down to 13,648 positive cases and five deaths. The trend in Mumbai and Maharashtra has shown that Covid-19 positive cases are now on a noticeable decline.
Health minister Tope said the trend in Mumbai and in Maharashtra is positive, but people should not drop their guard. He said people are getting cured but the infection is widespread.
“In South Africa, when the Omicron was first detected, the positive case graph went up speedily. But it came down at the same speed as well. A similar trend has been witnessed in Mumbai and Maharashtra. However, we are prepared to combat the virus by upgrading health infrastructure,” said a senior officer of the Maharashtra health department.
recorded 34,424 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, 954 more than the previous day, taking the overall tally to 69,87,938, while 22 patients succumbed to the infection in the state, up from eight a day ago, a health department official said.
He said Maharashtra also reported 34 new cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, raising their count to 1,281.
Of the 34 new cases of the highly contagious variant, 25 were reported from Pune city, six from Pune rural, two from Solapur and one from Panvel.
With these additions, the state's COVID-19 tally jumped to 69,87,938, while the death toll climbed to 1,41,669, the official said.
Of the 34,424 new cases and 22 deaths in the state, 11,647 infections and two fatalities were reported from Mumbai city.
The state had reported 33,470 COVID-19 cases and eight fatalities on Monday.
The number of recovered cases increased to 66,21,070 after 18,967 patients were discharged from hospitals during the day, he said.
According to the official, Maharashtra's coronavirus recovery rate is 94.75 per cent, while the fatality rate is 2.02 per cent.
Maharashtra's tally of active cases has shot up to 2,21,477 due to the widening gap between new and recovered infections.
Currently, 14,64,987 people are in home quarantine and another 3,032 in institutional quarantine, the official said.
As many as 2,10,043 coronavirus tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, taking their cumulative tally to 7,09,28,954, he said.
Maharashtra's case positivity rate stood at 16.38.
The rate indicates the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested.
The Mumbai region, which comprises the metropolis and its satellite cities, recorded 22,165 new cases, followed by the Pune region (6,799), Nashik (2,029), Nagpur (1,165), Kolhapur (842), Aurangabad (530), Latur (496) and the Akola region (398), a health department bulletin said.
A region consists of a set of districts.
The Mumbai region reported 10 fresh fatalities followed by seven in the Pune region, three in Nashik and two in the Kolhapur region, it said.
Other regions did not report any fresh COVID-19 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
Coronavirus figures of Maharashtra are as follows: Positive cases 69,87,938; fresh cases 34,424; death toll 1,41,669; recoveries 66,21,070; active cases 2,21,477, total tests 7,09,28,954.
Leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the All India Majlis-e-Itthehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the ruling Shiv Sena on Tuesday demanded that attendance caps be placed at monuments and tourist sites in the Aurangabad region instead of shutting them amid a rise in COVID-19 cases.
In a letter to Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray, Shiv Sena spokesperson Amabadas Danve called for restrictions, like an attendance cap of 50 per cent, at these sites in place of a complete shutdown, while AIMIM Lok Sabha MP Imtiaz Jaleel and BJP MLA Atul Save spoke on similar lines.
Danve said the fortunes of the tourism sector were looking up currently when the Omicron variant surfaced and placed hurdles.
"We can put restrictions so that social distancing can be maintained. Many families in Aurangabad depend on tourism. If we can keep wine shops and hotels open, then there should be no problem letting people visit monuments," Save told PTI.
Jaleel tweeted that knee-jerk reactions like shutting down monuments for tourists would affect the sector immensely.
If marriages can take place with attendance limits, why can't these sites be kept open with similar restrictions, he asked.
The administration in Maharashtra's Pune district has issued prohibitory orders for over 50 tourist spots in the region, an official said on Tuesday.
In an executive order, district collector Rajesh Deshmukh stated that prohibitory orders have been issued under section 144 of CrPC for tourist spots in Maval, Mulshi, Haveli, Ambegaon, Junnar, Bjor, and Velha tehsils of the district.
The order covers popular spots such as Bhushi dam near Lonavala, Lavasa, Temghar dam, Panshet, Khadakwasla dam, and forts including Sinhagad, Shivneri, Torna, Lohgad, and several other locations frequented by tourists, the official said.
People visit these spots in large numbers and the footfall increases during weekends, and guidelines regarding social distancing and masks are not followed, the order stated.
Pune district on Monday recorded 5,172 COVID-19 cases, with a positivity rate of 16 per cent, raising the tally of infections to 11,95,329.
(With PTI Inputs)