COVID crisis: Maharashtra records 67,013 cases; highest 1-day deaths in Mumbai since July

On Thursday, April 22, Maharashtra recorded 67,013 novel coronavirus cases taking the State's COVID-19 tally to 40,94,840. At present, there are 6,99,858 active cases in the State. With 62,298 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 33,30,747. A major novel coronavirus hotspot in the state, Mumbai recorded 75 more deaths- its highest daily fatality toll so far.

568 deaths — 77 from Nagpur, 75 from Mumbai, 47 from Nanded, 37 from Yavatmal, 31 from Nashik, 30 from Ahmednagar, 29 from Raigad, 24 from Osmanabad, 23 from Parbhani, 20 from Latur, 19 from Jalgaon, 17 from Solapur, 12 from Akola, 11 from Beed, 10 each from Sangli and Amravati, 9 each from Wardha, Mira Bhayandar and Thane, 8 from Kolhapur, 7 each from Jalna, Aurangabad and Pune, 6 from Chandrapur, 5 from Dhule, three from Vasai Virar, two from Panvel and one each from Gadchiroli, Gondia, Hingoli, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pimpri Chinchwad and Nandurbar were reported on Thursday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 309 occurred in the last 48 hours, 158 in the last week and the rest from the period before. Until now, a total of 62,479 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 2,48,95,986 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 39,71,917 persons are under home quarantine, 29,014 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 16.45 per cent, 81.34 per cent and 1.53 per cent respectively.

COVID-19 vaccination in Maharashtra

Apart from COVISHIELD and COVAXIN, the DCGI accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, paving way for the approval of Sputnik V on April 12. Moreover, the Union government declared 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. In a huge announcement on Monday, the Centre allowed the vaccination for people aged above 18 from May 1 onwards and mentioned that vaccine manufacturers can supply 50% of its doses to state governments and in the open market.

The private hospitals shall have to procure their supplies of the COVID-19 vaccines exclusively from this quota. Additionally, the private vaccination providers shall transparently declare their self-set vaccination price. A total of 1,19,66,150 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra till now, 17,07,683 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.