Maharashtra on Sunday continued to report a steep surge in COVID-19 cases, recording 2,946 new infections. The number of active cases rose to 16,370. The State’s case positivity rate rose to 9.73%.
The highest number of cases continued to be reported in Mumbai city, which saw a big case surge of 1,803, taking its total active cases to 10,889.
Delhi reported 735 new cases and three deaths, while the positivity rate increased to 4.35%, according to data shared by the city’s Health Department. This is the third consecutive day that Delhi has recorded more than 600 cases and a positivity rate of more than 3%. The capital had on Saturday reported 795 COVID-19 cases with a positivity rate of 4.11 per cent and zero daily deaths.
Earlier, Union Health Ministry data said India logged 8,582 new infections in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. on Sunday. The active cases increased to 44,513, an increase of 4,143 cases. The daily positivity rate was 2.71% and the weekly positivity rate 2.02%, the Ministry said.
Two fatalities in Maharashtra took its total death toll since the eruption of the pandemic in March 2020 to 1,47,870. The State has been recording an average 2,500 new cases daily during the past week — its highest surge in more than six months. However, authorities said there was no cause for panic as most cases were akin to mild instances of influenza and were recovering within three or four days. A total 1,432 patients were discharged.
After Mumbai city, parts of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) such as Thane and Navi Mumbai reported spikes of more than 280 and 240 cases respectively.
While Pune district reported more than 150 new cases, the rest of western Maharashtra including districts such as Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur remained largely unaffected by the fresh surge as did the Marathwada region.
West Bengal reported 123 fresh COVID-19 cases, a State health department bulletin said. The daily positivity rate was 1.6% as the 123 cases were detected out of 7,695 samples tested on the day. The State recorded 139 cases on Saturday.
(With PTI inputs)
