Maharashtra reports spike in new Covid cases at 1,201; 8 die, 953 recover

Maharashtra on Wednesday reported 1,201 new coronavirus cases, a sharp rise of 376 from a day ago, and eight fresh fatalities, the state health department said.

With these additions, the state's COVID-19 caseload increased to 66,52,166, while the death toll rose to 1,41,375, the department said in a bulletin. It said the state did not report any fresh case of the Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. On Tuesday, 11 new Omicron cases were reported in the state, taking the variant tally to 65.

A day ago, the state had reported 825 new coronavirus and 14 deaths. There are 7,350 active COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra now after 953 patients were discharged from hospitals following recovery in the last 24 hours. The number of recovered patients stood at 64,99,760 in the state, where the case fatality rate is 2.12 per cent. As many as 1,23,261 new tests were conducted, taking the number of samples examined for coronavirus so far to 6,80,06,322, the bulletin said. Currently, 75,273 people are in home quarantine and 860 people in institutional quarantine, it said. Mumbai reported 490 new coronavirus cases, a jump of more than 160 from a day ago, and zero fatality, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. Eight districts and six municipal corporations did not report any new COVID-19 cases. Among the eight administrative regions of Maharashtra (each consisting of a set of districts), the Mumbai region reported the highest 687 new cases, followed by 306 in Pune and 135 in the Nashik region. Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Latur, Nagpur and Akola regions reported 14, 25, 22, seven and five new cases, respectively. The Pune region reported three fatalities, followed by two in the Nashik region.

Mumbai, Aurangabad and Nagpur did not report any fresh fatality. Akola, Kolhapur and Latur regions also did not record any new death linked to coronavirus. Coronavirus figures for Maharashtra are as follows: Total cases 66,52,166; new cases 1,201; total deaths 1,41,375; recoveries 64,99,760; active cases 7,350; total tests 6,80,06,322.