MUMBAI: Cases in Maharashtra and the city seem to have plateaued, said the authorities, as Maharashtra reported 3,586 cases and 67 deaths on Friday while Mumbai’s cases ticked up from Thursday’s but were still below 500.
Health minister Rajesh Tope said the cases in the state were plateauing and haven’t risen to a large extent despite the opening up, but the health machinery has been asked to be on alert, especially since it the festive season. “We are working towards vaccinating a large number of people, this will help delay a third wave or even bring down its severity,” said Tope.
Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of the state government’s Covid task force, said the surge in the city’s cases that began three weeks ago seems to have plateaued at the moment. “The next 10 days are crucial, and we need to maintain the 350-500 daily tally with aggressive testing and tracing to reduce the spread of cases,” he said.
On Friday, Mumbai recorded 472 cases and three deaths.
BMC officials said the daily test positivity rate which had increased during the first days of the Ganpati festival had dropped back to around 1%. “We are doing extra tests daily — 40,443 on Thursday — to check the high-risk contacts and neighbours of every positive patient at the earliest,” said an official.
Even at the state level, the cases have been under 4,000 for the entire week. Senior officials said districts which have reported a drop in cases should continue aggressive testing. There are districts of concern like Pune and Ahmednagar and the focus has to be to ensure it doesn’t spread to the other districts.
