MUMBAI: As the number of Covid-19 tests conducted in Maharashtra increased post-Diwali, the daily count of cases too increased to 999 on Saturday.
The number of deaths increased to 49 compared to 41 and 28 on Friday and Thursday, respectively.
A health officer said the increase was due to a reconciliation exercise. "Out of the total 49 deaths reported on Saturday, 34 deaths are more than a week old. Of these 34 deaths, 26 are from Raigad, five from Thane and one each from Buldhana, Nashik and Pune," he said.
Except on Wednesday, the daily tally in the state has been under 1,000 since November 5.
In Mumbai, the daily tally kept under 300 for the third day, with 246 testing positive for the virus on Saturday. Only two deaths were registered, taking the toll to 16,290 since March 2020.
The daily cases haven't yet gone up substantially although it is a week since Diwali and many experts had feared that cases could increase due to crowding and socialising during the festival. While daily tests were below 1 lakh (60,000 on some days) during the Diwali week, the numbers increased to 1.15 lakh in Maharashtra. On Saturday, the BMC update showed 41,078 tests were done, higher than the average of 35,000 tests a day.
Active cases in the state (12,219) and Mumbai (3,577) continued to dip.
