Mumbai After a marginal rise in cases over the last week, the state reported a drop in daily infections on Monday and recorded 129 fresh cases, mostly due to the drop in the number of tests over the weekend.
According to authorities, cases will keep slightly increasing due to various factors, but there is yet no reason to panic as hospitalisations are still under control.
After reporting an average of 130 daily cases in the month of April, Covid infections started rising in May. The first 18 days of the month have seen 3,237 cases with a daily average of 202 cases. The active cases, too, have increased over the last few weeks to 1,526 on May 16 from 995 on May 1 and 626 on April 16. Zero deaths were reported in the state on Monday.
“There is no need to panic as long as the hospitalisation or the need for ventilators remains low. The rising trend seen over the last 10 days is because of various factors including migration of population, festivals or celebrations with huge gatherings in specific areas and also because of the lowered immunity among people of late. Since we have been moving towards the endemic stage of the infection, there could be upheaval movement in the graph, but there is no need to panic at all,” said state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate.
Mumbai reported 74 new cases taking the tally to 10,60,766. Of the 1,526 active cases, the highest 896 are in Mumbai, 307 in Pune and 166 in Thane. The daily test positivity rate (TPR) reported in the state was 1%. Four districts Buldhana (2.23), Aurangabad (2.12), Mumbai (1.79) and Pune (1.65), however, recorded TPR above the state average.
“Unless a new variant with an exceptionally new pattern is reported in the country, there would not be severe infections. Our vaccination coverage is also at a satisfactory level with more than 80% inoculated with at least one dose,” Dr Awate added.
According to the figures released by the state health department on May 10, only 45 patients (of 1,343 on that day) were hospitalised. About 10 of them were serious with five being in ICU. One of them needed a ventilator, while the remaining nine were on oxygen support.