Despite scores of residents thronged markets during Diwali festivities, Maharashtra registered its lowest single-day tally this year with 661 cases on Saturday. The last time that the state had a lower tally (583) was on April 30, 2020.
The daily tally In Mumbai also dropped to the lowest this year with 176 cases on Saturday. On August 15, the city’s tally dropped to 195 but rose to over 600-plus within the next month as restrictions on train travel were eased.
“One of the reasons for the low tally is the drop in daily testing,” state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate told The Times of India (TOI). Due to Diwali, people don’t want to get tested. In the last two days, our testing has dropped below one lakh, he added. The state usually does between 1.2 lakh and 1.5 lakh tests a day.
In Mumbai, only 25,431 tests were done during Diwali as against 35,000 tests daily. “Our daily positivity rate is below 0.7% on Saturday. There’s been no sharp rise in cases despite a lot of socialisation and crowding during the festivals,” Mumbai civic body’s additional commissioner Suresh Kakani told TOI.
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On Saturday, 10 deaths were registered in Maharashtra, including four in Mumbai, two in Pune, three in Kolhapur and one in Aurangabad.
Kakani emphasized that despite the lower number of cases, the BMC’s public health system would not lower its guard. “The next fortnight is very crucial for Mumbai as the increased socialisation could lead to an increase in cases,” he said.
Meanwhile, health minister Rajesh Tope has on many occasions in the last month said that Covid cases could rise slightly after Diwali. “Given the situation in Europe, where cases sharply increased in the last couple of weeks, we have to be vigilant here as well,” Dr Awate told TOI.
However, he said genetic sequencing tests carried out in the state over the last four months had not shown the presence of any new variant of concern.
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