Maha's Covid deaths cross 6K mark, 3,870 more cases recorded

Mumbai, June 21 (IANS) Maharashtra on Sunday notched 3,870 Covid-19 cases - the second highest so far but marginally down from Saturday's peak of 3,874, while Mumbai recorded its new high of 41 deaths, the maximum till date on a single day.

The number of fatalities on Sunday came down to 101, down from Saturday's 160, health officials said here.

With this, the toll climbed to 6,085, (though the state government data pegged the total at 6,170) and total cases shot up to 132,075 till date, the highest in the country.

Sunday's figures work out to roughly one death every 14 minutes, and a whopping 161 new cases notched every hour in the state.

After several days, the recovery rate dropped from 50.04 to 49.78 per cent, while the mortality rate stands at 4.67 percent.

For most days in June, the state has been recording three-digit highs of deaths and over 3,000 plus figures of new patients, causing big worries.

The Health Department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 60,147 were active cases - and this number is lower vis-a-vis the number of patients cured, indicating a positive sign.

Of the total 101 fatalities, Mumbai alone notched 41 deaths -- taking the city death toll up to 3,671 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here went up by 1,159 cases to touch 66,488 now.

There were 29 deaths in Thane city, 14 in Pune, seven in Nashik, four in Akola, and one each in Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Latur, Amravati, Buldhana and Washim.

On the positive side, a total of 1,591 fully cured patients returned home on Sunday, taking the number of those discharged to 65,744 now.

The MMR (Thane Division) remains badly-hit with a total of 4,568 Covid-19 deaths, and the number of positive cases going up to 96,859.

Thane - with 24,388 cases and 716 fatalities - has emerged as the second worst-hit district after Mumbai in the state.

Pune district has dropped to the third position with 15,881 patients and 601 deaths till now. Yet Pune Division ranks second (after MMR) with 18,926 patients and 811 deaths.

However, since the past couple of days, there have been glaring mismatches in the official data with inexplicable drop in death toll, but officials were not available for comments in the matter.

The next major region of concern is Nashik Division with 397 deaths and 5,883 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 190 fatalities and 4,102 cases, and finally Akola Division with 101 deaths and 2,093 cases.

Latur Division has 32 deaths and 768 cases, Kolhapur Division 36 deaths and 1,698 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 15 deaths and 1,632 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 600,066 now, while those in institutional quarantine increased to 26,287.