Today on Sunday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will address the state at seven o’clock. It is being said that in view of the increasing COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra, he can say about putting a lockdown in the state. By the way, if you know, before this, the Chief Minister had said in the past that ‘If people do not desist from breaking the rules, then lockdown can be imposed in the state again.”
Recently, a top official said in his statement, ‘The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) currently has no plans to put a lockdown in Mumbai. Instead, the focus will be on testing and treatment and strict implementation of face masks in public places.”
Simultaneously, BMC Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani says, “Lockdown in Mumbai is not an option. But we are preparing for the worst situation. I have instructed all jumbo facilities to inspect ventilators, para-monitors, housekeeping, medicines, oxygen, fire equipment, and safety so that we will be ready to recruit them when patients grow.”
As per the statistics with the state public health department, the average number of cases in the first fortnight of February equalled the average for all of January—In January, the daily average number of patients was 2,973. It was 2,926 in the fortnight of February. In an alarming situation, the daily average has gone up to 3,581 cases between February 10 and 15, from 2,139 in January.
Maharashtra had 36,201 active cases on February 15. Most rural areas have seen a rise in cases in comparison to urban areas. The districts of Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Jalgaon, Dhule, Jalna, Beed, Latur, Parbhani, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Yavatmal, Nagpur, and Wardha have registered the highest rise in the number of cases. With 3,739 patients, Pune continues to have the maximum number of cases between February 9 and 15. The numbers in Mumbai and Thane, the former hot spots, have declined though this week.
Surjitt Sahani
