Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally tops 44.10 lakh amid 66,358 new cases; 895 more deaths

On Tuesday, April 27, Maharashtra recorded 66,358 novel coronavirus cases taking the State's COVID-19 tally to 44,10,085. At present, there are 6,72,434 active cases in the State. With 67,752 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 36,69,548. In a heartening development, Mumbai too recorded only 4,014 new cases. 

895 deaths — 162 from Aurangabad, 74 from Pune, 63 each from Nashik and Nagpur, 59 from Mumbai, 47 from Ahmednagar, 32 from Osmanabad, 27 each from Akola and Yavatmal, 25 from Nanded, 24 from Solapur, 18 each from Kalyan Dombivali, Satara, Sangli and Bhandara, 17 from Amravati, 15 each from Raigad, Parbhani, Gadchiroli and Ratnagiri, 12 from Sindhudurg, 10 each from Navi Mumbai, Jalgaon, Beed and Washim, 8 each from Nandurbar and Chandrapur, 7 from Gondia, 6 each from Malegaon, Pimpri Chinchwad, Kolhapur and Buldhana, 5 each from Vasai Virar and Mira Bhayandar, 4 from Jalna, three from Panvel, two each from Bhiwandi and Akola and one each from Dhule and Thane were reported on Tuesday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 392 occurred in the last 48 hours, 179 in the last week, and 324 from the period before. Until now, a total of 66,179 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 2,62,54,737 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 42,64,936 persons are under home quarantine, 30,146 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate, and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 16.8 per cent, 83.21 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively.

Novel coronavirus 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 April 19, the Centre allowed the vaccination for people aged above 18 from May 1 onwards and mentioned that vaccine manufacturers can supply 50 per cent 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 1,30,29,605 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra till now, 22,90,190 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.