Maharashtra continued to see an upward trend in its daily Covid-19 tally with 4,255 people found infected with the virus on Thursday. This is the highest single-day spike since February 12. Three pandemic-related fatalities were recorded, according to the health bulletin data. With this, the cumulative tally of the virus in the state has reached 79,23,697 and the active caseload rose to 20,634.
It also marks a rise of 231 coronavirus infections (5.74%) as compared to yesterday. On Wednesday, the western state had logged 4,024 new cases and two deaths.
The state saw 2,879 people recover, taking the total number of recovered cases to 77,55,183. The bulletin also showed that thus far, Maharashtra has conducted a total of 8,14,72,916 tests for Covid-19, including 44,695 today.
Financial hub Mumbai, the western state’s capital, accounted for 2,366 new infections, taking the tally of total cases to 10,87,326.
Two more cases of the BA.5 variant of coronavirus were also reported in the state, the state health department said. Both patients are from Nagpur and have been vaccinated against Covid-19. The department informed in a press release that they recovered from the infection in home isolation. The patients, a 29-year-old male, and a 54-year-old female were found to have contracted Covid-19 on June 6 and 9, respectively. With this, the total of B.A.4 and B.A.5 variant cases found in the state reached 19.
The BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 were found in some parts of the world, including South Africa, in April. Last week, cases of these sub-lineages were reported in Telangana and Tamil Nadu as well.