Maharashtra records 35,756 new Covid cases; deaths remain high at 79

Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded 35,756 new coronavirus cases, up from 33,914 logged a day ago, while deaths linked to the infection remained high at 79, the state health department said.

No new case of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus was reported in the state, the department said in a bulletin. With these additions, the state's COVID-19 caseload rose to 76,05,181, while the death toll reached 1,42,316, it said. On Tuesday, the state had reported 86 deaths linked to the infection. Till date, a total of 2,858 patients have been found infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant in the state of which 1,534 have already recovered. The health department had sent 6,328 swab samples for genome sequencing of which results of only 92 are awaited, the bulletin said. As many as 39,857 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, taking their cumulative number to 71,60,293, the department said. The state, where the coronavirus recovery rate is 94.15 per cent, now has 2,98,733 active cases, it said. Mumbai city reported 1,858 cases and 13 deaths. Of the eight administrative circles (each comprising several districts) in the state, the Pune circle reported 12,986 new coronavirus cases, followed by Nagpur (6,415), Mumbai (4,830), Nashik (4,572), Aurangabad (1,801), Latur (1,793), Kolhapur (1,676) and the Akola circle (1,683), the department said. The Mumbai circle recorded 29 deaths during the day, followed by Pune 17, Nashik 13, Kolhapur 13, Nagpur three, Latur and Akola (two each). No death linked to COVID-19 was reported in the Aurangabad circle in the past 24 hours, the health department said. Currently, 15,47,643 people are in home quarantine and another 3,298 in institutional quarantine. With 1,83,026 new coronavirus tests, the tally of swab samples examined so far in the state rose to 7,38,67,385, it added. Maharashtra's coronavirus figures are as follows: New cases: 35,756, total cases: 76,05,181, total deaths: 1,42,316; recoveries: 71,60,293, active cases 2,98,733, total tests: 7,38,67,385.