The number of Covid-19 deaths dropped and infected cases rose in Maharashtra on Thursday, as seven persons succumbed to coronavirus taking the total number of deaths to 194, while 286 people tested positive for the pandemic.
On a day when the total number of infected cases rose from 2916 to 3202, the pandemic claimed seven lives in the state. Of the deaths, Pune accounted four, while there were three deaths in Mumbai.
Of those dead on Thursday, five were men and two were women. Four of them aged over 60 years and three were from the age group 40 to 60 years. “Six out of these seven deceased (86%) had high-risk co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma and heart disease,” a state medical bulletin said.
In a related development, the Maharashtra government is planning to relax restrictions selectively in certain industrial areas with stringent safety conditions from Monday.
Talking to media persons, Industries Minister Subhash Desai said that areas or industries falling under the ‘Red Zone’ would not be permitted for the time being in view of the large number of cases there. “The government will consider all aspects and consult the local authorities before deciding on the ‘Orange Zones’, while in ‘Green Zones’,” he said
Lockdown will, however, continue in areas like Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali and Bhiwandi in Thane, Vasai-Virar in Palghar, Pimpri-Chinchwad in Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik, Nagpur and other urban industrial centres falling in the ‘Red Zone.
Meanwhile, the State health authorities said: “Out of 56,673 laboratory samples, 52,762 tested negative, while 3202 have been tested positive for coronavirus until Thursday”.
As per the guidance from Government of India, the state health authorities are implementing cluster containment action plan in places where clusters of patients have been found in the state.
“There are 297 active containment zones in the state currently. Total 5664 surveillance squads worked today across the state and surveillance of over 20.50 lakh population was done,” the bulletin said.
Currently, as many as 1, 300 patients have been discharged till date after full recovery. 2.
Similarly, 71,076 people are in home quarantine and 6108 people are in institutional quarantine.
Given that the Covid-related mortality in Maharashtra is higher than other states in the country, efforts are to analyze its causation, plan measures in order to tackle this issue and to provide guidance to treating doctors at the district level, a special task force of doctors has been formed at the state level.
“Hence, a hotline is going to be available for doctors treating Covis-19 patients in the state. Different days in the week have been assigned to these expert doctors,” the bulletin said.
The task force comprises both government as well as private doctors. Experts such as Dr. Zarir Udwadia, Dr. Nitin Karnik, Dr. Vasant Nagavekar, Dr. Kedar Toraskar, Dr. Om Shrivastav, Dr. Shashank Joshi and Dr Rahul Padit have been included in this team.