23,179 New Covid Cases and 84 Deaths In Maharashtra across the last 24 Hours

Centre worrying about the new surge of covid cases in Maharashtra…learn more…

Thursday, 18th March 2021

The state of Maharashtra recorded 23,179 new cases of coronavirus this Wednesday and that marks the highest figures of this year so far and that’s almost 30% higher than what it was the previous day. A significant surge in the rate of covid infections can be witnessed in many states of the country as per PM Modi who is calling this an ‘emerging second peak’.

The city of Nagpur recorded the highest Covid-19 case numbers in the course of the day with the number standing at 2,698. Next was Pune with the total number of covid cases standing at 2,612 and then was Mumbai recorded a total of 2,377 covid cases during the day. In the last 24 hours, the death toll in the state of Maharashtra stood at 84. Currently, there are more than 1.52 lakh active covid cases in the state.

The worrying stats arrived on the day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that prompt action was required to contain the covid-19 case surge, as the covid infections count in the country hit the number of 1.14 crore; i.e. the 3rd after US and Brazil.

Also Read: India records 17,921 new COVID-19 cases, 133 deaths in last 24 hours

"We need to soon stop the emerging second peak of the corona," he opined during a virtual meet with the CMs this Wednesday, urging the CMs to increase the covid testing and also strictly monitor the wearing of a mask. "We need to take quick, decisive steps."

"In recent weeks, some 70 districts have witnessed a more than 150 percent increase in the number of cases and if we do not stop the pandemic right now, it could lead to a nationwide outbreak," he stated.

Coronavirus Infections dropped to lesser than 9,000 new covid cases towards the first half of February, but have spiked steadily since then, thus reaching as many as 28,903 on this Wednesday, the highest recorded spike since the 13th of December. The death toll leaped by 188 fresh deaths to reach up to 1, 59,044, the highest recorded figure in the span of 2 months.

PM Modi cautioned that the states need to be proactive in order to ensure covid infections did not rise in the rural belts, where the healthcare infrastructure wouldn’t be up to the mark. Rural India nurtures nearly 2/3rd of the 135 crore population of the country.

The centre thinks that crowding of places, as well as the negligence towards wearing masks, are responsible for this spike in covid cases. The centre is actually ruling out virus mutations as a cause for the spike.

The state of Maharashtra has actually paved the way for the recent surge in the covid-19 cases in the country.

About 62% of the covid-19 infections recorded in the last 24 hours and about 46% of the death toll from Covid-19 were actually reported by the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The government of the state has ordered ‘lockdown’ in certain districts of the state and has also imposed a curb on the cinemas, on the restaurants as well as hotels until the month’s end.

Maharastra’s first case of COVID-19 infection was recorded in March 2020; i.e. last year. The number of covid cases per day had started increasing rapidly after that and in the month of September the previous year, over 1 lakh covid cases were recorded in the state in just a week.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

NDTV