Maha Covid-19 death toll hits 50,000

In a pat for the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation and Maharashtra government, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has lauded the success achieved in Dharavi – Asia’s largest slum – in conquering Covid-19. The WHO Director-General Tedros A. Ghebreyesus, at his press conference late on Friday, referred to the achievements of Dharavi in Mumbai among other similar examples globally.

Mumbai, (Samajweekly) Exactly 10 months after the first two Covid-19 cases were reported from Pune on March 9, 2020, Maharashtra’s coronavirus death toll crossed 50,000 on Saturday, health officials said here.

With this, the state’s Covid-19 fatalities are just below Spain’s 51,874 deaths and above Colombia’s 45,431 deaths, as per the Worldometer’s latest data.

The state reported 57 deaths – compared with the peak tally of 515 on September 15 – and the total fatalities shot up from 49,970 to 50,027 on Saturday – giving a rough monthly average of 5,000 deaths in the past 10 months.

The new infections remained below the 5,000-mark for the past nearly a month and with 3,581 fresh cases – compared with the peak single-day tally of 24,886 (September 11) – the total cases zoomed up from 19,61,975 to 19,65,556 till date.

The recovery rate touched 94.07 per cent – while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.55 per cent, as the state grapples with the challenges of the new UK strain of coronavirus that has entered the state ahead of the Covid-19 vaccination drive due to start next week.

Simultaneously, another chunk of 2,401 fully recovered patients returned home – taking the total number of discharged from 18,58,999 to 18,61,400 till date – much higher than the 52,960 ‘active cases’ (ill) in the state.

The number of people sent to home quarantine decreased – from 242,585 to 234,545 now – while the number of those in institutional quarantine also went down – from 3,015 to 2,474 on Saturday.

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