Mumbai: Maharashtra on Thursday breached the 200 mark since March 25 as it added 233 fresh Covid-19 cases. On March 25, the state had recorded 275 cases. For the second day straight, Mumbai saw over 100 cases, with 130 new infections reported on Thursday. The state, however, did not see any Covid-19 fatalities.
In 20 days, the state’s active case count almost doubled. On April 16, Maharashtra saw its lowest active caseload with 626 cases, which climbed to 1109 on May 5. Mumbai topped the state in the active cases with 682, followed by the Pune district with 229 cases, and the Thane district with 109 cases.
Besides Mumbai, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad reported the most cases on Thursday, with 37 and 16, respectively. Of the total cases reported on Thursday, Mumbai, Thane and Pune districts contributed 203 cases. State health department officials said that the situation is not worrisome as the rate of hospitalisation among the positive has not gone up.
Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer, said that the cases are being mainly reported from Mumbai, Pune, and Thane region. “Though the cases are going up, the rate of hospitalisation is not going up. Over 85% of the cases are asymptomatic, and only 4%-5% of the positive cases continue to be the ones that need hospitalisation,” he said.
The health department is keeping a watch on the increasing numbers, but the uptick is not a concern, they said. “The cases we get today are Omicron cases. So long as there is no mutation there is no cause for concern. For that (to ascertain mutation), we are carrying out genome sequencing regularly from all the positive cases detected,” Awate added.