Maha sees new high of 390 Covid deaths, million in quarantine

Mumbai (IANS) : Maharashtra notched a staggering new high of 390 Covid-19 deaths on Sunday - a day after crossing the half-million case tally mark - besides recording the second-highest figure of daily new cases, at 12,248, health officials said.

Continuing with the spate of high fatalities, the state's daily death toll surpassed the previous peak of 334 Covid fatalities of August 5, even as a million-plus people were in quarantine.

The state death toll has shot up to 17,757, while the total number of cases went up to 515,332 now - both highest in the country.

According to Sunday's figures, there was one death roughly every 4 minutes and a staggering 534 new cases every hour.

However, the state's recovery rate rose from 67.26 per cent to 68.25 per cent on Sunday, while the mortality rate remained stable at 3.45 per cent.

Also, a new high of 13,348 recovered patients returned home, taking the total number of discharged patients to 351,710 - considerably higher than the 145,558 active cases currently in the state.

Of the total fatalities on Sunday, Pune saw the highest, at 90 deaths, followed by Mumbai's 48, and Thane's 47 deaths. Nagpur also joined the high fatality list with 40 deaths.

With the new fatalities, Mumbai's toll increased to 6,799 and the number of corona cases increased by 1,066 to 123,382.

There were also 28 deaths in Jalgaon, 14 in Nashik, 13 in Kolhapur, 12 in Latur, 10 each in Palghar, Solapur, and Yavatmal, nine in Aurangabad, eight in Satara, seven each in Raigad, Sangli, and Parbhani, five in Nanded, four in Ahmednagar, three in Buldhana, two each in Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, and Hingoli, and one each in Dhule, Jalna, Osmanabad, Beed, Wardha, Gondia, and Gadchiroli.

Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis, meanwhile, urged the government to conduct more RT-PCR tests owing to the high - 65 per cent - failure rate of rapid antigen tests.

"Of the total 78,711 tests (August 6), 50,421 (64 per cent) were antigen tests and only 27,440 (34 per cent) were RT-PCR, and 850 using other methods. This ratio of antigen vis-a-vis RT-PCR must be 1:1 instead of 1:2. The state has a testing capacity of over 54,000 for RT-PCR tests and it must be utilised fully," the BJP leader said.

The MMR (Thane division) continues to see deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the toll shooting up by 112 to 10,741 and 3,249 new cases taking the total to 266,868.

Pune district total cases have risen to 113,004, with the death toll at 2,728, while Thane district had 104,935 cases with 3,008 fatalities on Sunday.

With 113 more fatalities, the Pune division's death toll rose to 3,480 and the case tally zoomed up with 3,680 new cases to reach 130,395.

Nashik division has recorded 1,447 fatalities and 49,132 cases, followed by Aurangabad division with 687 deaths and 20,572 cases, Kolhapur division with 429 fatalities and 16,180 cases, Latur division with 346 fatalities and 10,639 cases, Akola division with 325 fatalities and 10,086 cases, and Nagpur division with 248 deaths and 10,936 cases.

Latur and Akola divisions have also entered the 10,000-plus bracket of Covid cases, as more cases and fatalities are witnessed in tier-II and tier-III locations in the state.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine crossed the million-mark to reach 10,00,588, while those in institutional quarantine decreased to 34,957.