MUMBAI: After plateauing between 4% and 5% for over a month, the state’s weekly positivity rate for Covid-19 has finally climbed down. It fell to 3.8% in the week ending July 27. However, experts caution that a dip in testing in some of the high-burden districts due to the floods could have contributed to the drop.
From a staggering weekly positivity rate of 27% in the first week of April, Maharashtra started to see a steady decline only around mid-May, when it fell to 14.3%. Thereafter, till mid-June, the drop was steady with positivity rate declining to 5% in the week ending on June 16. However,from June 17 to July 21, the weekly rate stubbornly stood between around 4.4% to 4.5%, showing no signs of decline.
Positivity rate is an indicator of the transmission of the disease and also the volume of tests carried out. Six to seven districts, including Kolhapur, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Nandurbar and Sindhudurg were mainly driving the positivity rate, officials said. “In those four weeks, the positivity rate didn’t see any movement as newer pockets within these districts would report cases,” said a health official. “The decline in positivity is a good sign but we can say it’s real only if it’s consistent,” said the official, adding that Maharashtra is encountering newer pockets almost every fortnight. Testing figures also show that less than 2 lakh tests were carried out daily on five of seven days last week.
Currently, ten districts continue to have a positivity rate higher than the state average: Satara, Pune, Kolhapur, Sangli, Sindhudurg, Solapur, Ahmednagar, Beed, Raigad and Ratnagiri. Satara is at the top of the chart, with positivity of 8%, followed by Pune and Kolhapur that have a PR of 7.23% and 7.18% respectively. The state, in its recent bulletin, mentioned that Satara, Pune and Sindhudurg were once again seeing a rise in weekly positivity.
The Centre on Tuesday also pointed out that Solapur and Beed were among the districts reporting a higher number of cases. Solapur officials said that from 150 daily detections till last week, the number has now doubled to 300-350. Civil surgeon of Solapur Dr Pradeep Dhele said while the lockdown continues to be in force, people roam around post 4 pm too. “Vaccination has given people confidence and has resulted in dropping of the guard at some places,” he said, adding that cases are coming from Pandharpur, Karmala, etc.
The district with the least positivity rate is Nagpur, whose weekly rate has come down to 0.19%. At the beginning of the second wave in Vidarbha, Nagpur was one of the districts with the highest positivity rates (35%).
