Maharashtra records highest single-day Covid infection count in 2021 as cases jump to 23,179

Maharashtra reported the highest single-day infection count so far in 2021 on Wednesday. The daily cases of COVID-19 in the state jumped to 23,179, health officials said.

With these new cases, Maharashtra's overall infection count rose to 23,70,507. Maharashtra's fatality count also jumped to 53,080 after 84 new deaths were reported on Wednesday. As many as 9,138 patients were discharged from hospitals during the day, taking the recovery count to 21,63,391. There are 1,52,760 active cases in the state at present.

As per the union health ministry data, Maharashtra alone accounts for more than 60 per cent of all active cases and 45 per cent of new deaths in the country.

Nagpur city reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases during the day with 2,698, followed by 2,612 in Pune and 2,377 in Mumbai city. Mumbai's case tally stands at 3,49,974 COVID-19 cases, whereas the fatality count stands at 11,551.

The state had reported its first COVID-19 case in March last year. The daily number of cases started rising gradually and in September last year, more than one lakh cases were added in Maharashtra within a span of merely a week.

On September 11, the state reported 24,886 cases, while on September 17, a total of 24,619 cases were added.

The third, fourth and fifth-highest figures were reported on September 9 (23,816), September 6 (23,350) and September 10 (23,446). The number of new single-day cases started gradually going down by the end of last year, although the count started witnessing an upward trend once against from mid-February this year.

So far, Maharashtra has carried out 1,78,35,495 COVID-19 tests. There are 6,71,620 people in home quarantine, while 6,738 are in institutional quarantine.

Amid the continuous surge in cases, several experts have pointed that Maharashtra is witnessing the beginning of the second wave of coronavirus. KEM Hospital's Dean Hemant Deshmukh said, "Of late, we realise that this (surge) is not a ripple in the first wave, but a mighty scary second wave itself, which is starting."

Additionally, the Centre, in a letter to state chief secretary Sitaram Kunte said "Maharashtra is at the beginning of the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic" and asked it to plan for a "worst-case scenario" with sufficient lead time.

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(With PTI inputs)