Maharashtra records 35,952 cases taking COVID-19 tally to 26 lakh; 111 deaths reported

For the second day in a row, Maharashtra crossed its previous highest one-day spike in COVID-19 cases with 35,952 more persons testing positive on Thursday, March 25. This has propelled the state's COVID-19 tally to 26,00,833. At present, there are 2,62,685 active cases in the state. With 20,444 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 22,83,037. With Mumbai recording 5504 cases in the day, it remains a major novel coronavirus hotspot in the state. 

111 deaths — 24 from Nagpur, 20 from Pune, 13 from Mumbai, 8 from Nashik, 7 from Vasai Virar, 4 each from Buldhana, Beed and Parbhani, three each from Nandurbar, Sangli, Akola and Washim, two each from Latur, Jalgaon, Malegaon and Navi Mumbai and one each from Thane, Mira Bhayandar, Panvel, Dhule, Solapur, Nanded and Chandrapur were reported on Thursday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 66 occurred in the last 48 hours, 28 in the last week and the rest from the period before. Until now, a total of 53,795 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 1,88,78,754 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 13,62,899 persons are under home quarantine, 13,770 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 13.78 per cent, 87.78 per cent and 2.07 per cent respectively.

COVID-19 inoculation 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. 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 46,97,281 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra so far, 6,84,415 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.