Maharashtra notches 53 Covid-19 deaths for 2nd time in 48 hours

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For the second time in 48 hours, Maharashtra on Tuesday recorded 53 new Covid-19 deaths, after touching the same figures on Sunday, with the number of positive cases zooming past the 24,000 mark, health officials said here.

With 53 fatalities, the state's death toll shot up from Monday's 868 to 921 on Tuesday while the total number of coronavirus cases increased to 24,427, a jump of 1,026 new cases.

Of the total deaths, 28 -- the highest till date -- were recorded in Mumbai, taking the city's toll from Monday's 528 to 556 while the number of Covid-19 cases in the city shot up by 426 to 14,947 on Tuesday.

Dharavi slum alone continued to be a major hotspot in Mumbai, notching 46 new cases, taking the total number of patients to 962, besides recording 31 deaths till now.

Besides Mumbai, 7 deaths were reported from Raigad, 6 from Pune, 5 from Jalgaon, 3 from Solapur, 2 from Thane, and one each from Aurangabad and Akola.

The deceased comprised 29 men and 24 women, and nearly 66 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.

With the unabated spike in Covid-19 cases and deaths in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal carried out a major organisational revamp with at least 9 IAS officers given charge of different responsibilities to combat the pandemic.

All experienced and in the rank of Additional Municipal Commissioners, the IAS officers are: Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, Ashwini Bhide, Sanjeev Jaiswal, Prajakta Lawangare-Varma, P. Velrasu, Suresh Kakani, N. Ramaswami and Ashutosh Salil.

All civic hospital deans will report to Patankar-Mhaiskar who will handle augmentation of Covid-19 beds in the BMC hospitals, while Jaiswal will look after food grain procurement, cooked food packets distribution, supply chains in containment zones and liaison with the state government.

Bhide will handle the Covid-19 overall strategy, war-room monitoring and dashboard updation, contact-tracing, institutional quarantining and containment strategies.

Lawangare-Varma will coordinate with the Covid Yoddha volunteers to appoint doctors-nurses, Kakani will handle major city and peripheral hospitals and primary health facility management.

Salil will look into creation of jumbo facilities and coordinate with various government agencies, Ramaswami will oversee operations of Seven Hills Hospital and training, while Velrasu will oversee pre-monsoon works, coordinate international arrivals, screening and quarantining them.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (Thane Division) continued to cause huge concerns with 603 Covid-19 deaths and 18,337 patients.

Pune Division trails a distant second with 185 fatalities and 3,377 patients.

The next area of concern is Nashik Division with 69 deaths and 1,082 positive cases, followed by Akola Division with 26 deaths and 383 cases, and Aurangabad with 16 fatalities and 732 patients.

There's also the Kolhapur Division with 4 deaths and 118 patients, Latur Division with 5 fatalities and 82 cases, and Nagpur Division with 3 deaths and 275 patients.

On the positive side, 39 more fully cured patients returned home on Tuesday, taking the number of those discharged to 5,125 till date, which is a very encouraging sign, said Health Minister Rajesh Tope.

Meanwhile, the number of people shunted in home quarantine increased from 248,301 to 281,655, the highest increase of 33,628 in a day, and those in institutional quarantine went up to 15,627, while the state's containment zones increased from 1,256 to 1,289 on Tuesday.

As many as 12,923 teams have carried out a survey of a population of around 54.9 lakh in the state till date.