Maharashtra on Wednesday notched a new high of 105 Covid-19 deaths, from Tuesday’s previous high of 97 fatalities, with the number of cases shooting above 55,000, health officials said here.
The figures include a whopping 64 deaths in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region alone, besides 2,190 new cases recorded across the state.
This comes to roughly one death every 14 minutes, and an average 91 new cases recorded every hour, in the state.
Maharashtra has been recording 90-plus fatalities and over 2,000 new patients for the past two days consecutively, with the last highest figure of infections being 3,041 cases on May 24.
With 105 fatalities, the state death toll has touched 1,897 and the total number of coronavirus patients increased from 54,758 to 56,948 now.
The Health Department said the state now had 37,125 active cases — swelling by 1,947 over Tuesday’s 35,178.
However, the doubling rate has improved from last week’s 11.5 days to 14.7 days now with a 31.5 percent recovery rate.
Of the total 105 fatalities today, 32 were recorded in Mumbai alone, taking the city deaths up from to 1,097 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here shot up by 1,044 cases to touch 34,018.
Mumbai’s congested Dharavi slum continued to be a major red-hotspot with 18 new cases, taking the total number of infectees to 1,639 and figure of deaths climbing to 61.
Of Mumbai’s 32 deaths, besides one from Gujarat, there were 23 fatalities in Thane (Thane City, Navi Mumbai), 10 in Jalgaon, nine in Pune, eight in Raigad, six in Akola, four in Aurangabad, three each in Nashik and Solapur, two in Satara, and one each in Nagpur, Nandurbar and Palghar.
They comprised 72 men and 33 women, and nearly 63 percent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.
On the positive side, 964 fully cured patients returned home on Wednesday, taking the number of those discharged to 17,918.
Maharashtra Police recorded one more death of a policeman, taking the total toll to 21, besides the total infectees increased by 75 to touch 1,964, comprising 233 officers and 1,741 personnel.
The MMR continued to cause grave concerns with 1,290 Covid-19 deaths and positive cases shooting to 43,466.
Though trailing a distant second after Mumbai, Pune Division fatalities touched 350, besides 7,688 patients.
The next major area of concern is Nashik Division with 121 deaths and 1,765 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 58 fatalities and 1,572 cases, and finally Akola Division with 40 deaths and 857 cases.
Latur Division has eight deaths and 284 cases, Kolhapur Division seven deaths and 651 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 10 deaths and 612 cases.
Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased to 582,701 with a high jump of 15,079, and those in institutional quarantine went up to 37,761, a spurt of 2,561.
The state’s containment zones increased from 2,562 to 2,684 on Wednesday and 17,119 health teams have carried out a survey of a population of around 68 lakhs in the state.
