Maharashtra Covid cases up 42%, rise in Mumbai hospitalisations – Times of India

MUMBAI: Maharashra and Mumbai reported yet another significant spike in Covid infections on Wednesday as new cases rose by more than 42% over the last 24 hours.
Daily detections in Maharashtra went past the 2,000 mark after nearly four months, while Mumbai’s fresh cases at 1,765 hit a 133- day high.
Active cases in Mumbai hit 7,000, also pushing up state’s count to nearly 10,000 (9,806). The state registered 2,701 new cases of Covid, its highest single-day detection since February 17, when 2,797 were reported. The third wave was ebbing around this time in February.
Mumbai’s Wednesday tally of 1,765 Covid cases was the highest since January 26 (1,858 cases). Alongside the steep rise in cases, the city also saw 83 hospitalisations on Wednesday, up from 74 on Tuesday. No deaths were reported in the state.
While numbers underline a marked increase in viral activity, experts are unanimous that it cannot be called the fourth wave yet. “Severe illness and hospitalisations are low, so we cannot call it the fourth wave,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the state Covid taskforce. He, though, called the large community spread “worrisome”.
Dr Pradeep Awate, Maharashtra’s surveillance officer, concurred that globally the opinion has been that a new variant is central to driving a new wave. “Nowhere in India has a new variant been found. The BA.4 and BA.5 variants of Omicron could increase transmission momentarily, but they are unlikely to be sustained for a long period,” he said.
Maharashtra is currently seeing an outbreak that is localised and restricted largely to Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Pune to an extent. Dr Awate said the rest of the state is barely contributing 5-8% of cases.
Analysis also suggests that despite regular mobility between Mumbai and other districts such as Solapur, Satara and Kolhapur, among others, none of the latter has seen any surge in cases thus far. With more testing, Mumbai is bound to find more cases, but till the severity is low, there is nothing to panic about, Dr Awate said.
Mumbai’s average hospitalisations have increased nearly three times in the last seven days as compared to the week before, civic data shows. From 17-20 admissions, the city has been recording more than 40 hospitalisations daily for the last five days. However, cases are mostly being managed in the wards, and oxygen requirement or ICU is steady.
Dr Sanjeev Kumar, BMC’s additional municipal commissioner, said the city is carrying out more than 19,000 tests in a day and hence finding more cases.
“The positivity rate is below 10% (9%). We don’t think the situation is anything alarming,” he told TOI.
Of the 83 patients hospitalised on Wednesday, 11 needed oxygen.