Maharashtra records 61,695 new COVID-19 cases taking tally to 36.39 lakh; 349 more deaths

On Thursday, April 15, Maharashtra recorded 61,695 novel coronavirus cases taking the State's COVID-19 tally to 36,39,855. At present, there are 6,20,060 active cases in the State. With 53,335 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 29,59,056. With Mumbai recording 8217 cases in the day, it remains a major novel coronavirus hotspot in the state. 

349 deaths —  50 from Mumbai, 49 from Pune, 30 from Nagpur, 29 from Ahmednagar, 23 from Satara, 15 from Yavatmal, 13 from Nashik, 11 from Jalgaon, 10 each from Panvel, Pimpri Chinchwad, Osmanabad, Beed and Amravati, 9 from Mira Bhayandar, 7 each from Pune, Parbhani and Gondia, 6 each from Latur, Solapur and Thane, 5 each from Navi Mumbai, Sangli and Nanded, 4 from Akola, three from Jalna and one each from Vasai Virar, Raigad, Bhandara and Chandrapur were reported on Thursday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 211 occurred in the last 48 hours, 71 in the last week and the rest from the period before. Until now, a total of 59,153 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 2,30,36,652 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 36,39,855 persons are under home quarantine, 27,273 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 15.8 per cent, 81.3 per cent and 1.63 per cent respectively.

COVID-19 vaccination in Maharashtra

On January 3, the Drugs Controller General of India approved COVISHIELD and COVAXIN for restricted emergency use. Manufactured by the Serum Institute of India with technology transfer from Oxford University-AstraZeneca, COVISHIELD is a Recombinant Chimpanzee Adenovirus vector vaccine with its overall efficacy of 70.42 per cent. On the other hand, COVAXIN is a Whole Virion Inactivated Corona Virus Vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and NIV.

A day earlier, Sputnik V was approved by the DCGI and the Centre decided that those vaccines that have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan, or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) will be granted emergency use approval in India as well. On January 16, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray launched the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the state and inaugurated the vaccination centre at BKC. While a total of 1,03,56,338 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra so far, 11,54,685 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.