Maha: Covid deaths cross 34K, new cases remain high

Mumbai, Sep 24 (IANS) Maharashtra added another 1,000 Covid-19 deaths in 72 hours to shoot past the 34,000-mark even as new cases continued to remain in the upper echelons though the recovery rate improved, health officials said here on Thursday.

The state recorded 19,164 new cases – lower than the highest tally of 24,886 (September 11) – which pushed the state’s total up from 12,63,799 to 12,82,963 cases till date.

Adding 459 more fatalities – down from the peak of 515 – the state’s death toll shot past 34,000, from 33,886 to 34,345 now.

For the sixth consecutive day, the state’s recovery rate jumped – from 75.65 per cent to 75.86 per cent – while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.68 per cent on Thursday.

Against this, 17,184 fully recovered patients returned home taking the total of discharged patients from 956,030 to 973,214 till date – much higher than the 274,993 active cases currently in the state.

As per the figures on Thursday, there was one death roughly every 3.13 minutes and 799 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 459 deaths, after nearly six weeks, Mumbai again led the state toll with 54 fatalities, followed by 49 in Pune, 47 in Nagpur, 35 in Satara, 29 in Jalgaon, 23 each in Thane and Kolhapur, 21 in Sangli, 17 in Yavatmal, 16 in Akola, 14 each in Raigad and Nashik, 12 in Sindhudurg, 11 each in Ahmednagar, Osmanabad and Washim, 10 each in Solapur and Latur – in the higher bracket.

There were 9 fatalities in Bhandara, 7 in Wardha, 6 each in Palghar, Beed and Amravati, 3 each in Aurangabad and Jalna, 2 each in Dhule, Nanded and Chandrapur, 1 each in Ratnagiri, Parbhani, Gondia and Gadchiroli, besides 2 outsiders/foreigners – in the lower bracket.

After remaining in the sub-50 range for nearly six weeks, Mumbai recorded a high of 54 deaths – and the toll increased from 8,604 to 8,658 while the number of corona cases shot up by 2,163 and jumped from 190,264 to 192,427 now.

Of the total 8 Circles, the situation in Mumbai circle (MMR – comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the edge as deaths spiral and cases pile up.

The MMR fatalities shot up by 97 – from 15,081 a day earlier to 15,178 and with another spike of 4,740 new infectees, the total cases shot up from 448,717 the previous day to 453,457 now.

With another 94 fatalities, the Pune circle’s (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased from 7,303 to 7,397 and the daily case tally zoomed up by another 4,956 – from 335,749 a day earlier to 340,705 cases now.

Nashik circle recorded 3,453 fatalities and 169,509 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle’s 2,568 deaths and 86,514 cases, and Nagpur circle recorded 2,164 deaths and 94,550 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1,394 deaths and 50,763 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,257 fatalities and 48,823 cases, followed by Akola circle with 812 deaths and 37,207 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased – from 18,75,424 to 18,83,912 now – while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 34,457 to 33,412 on Thursday.

–IANS

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