Maharashtra's COVID tally soars to 38.98 lakh; 27,081 persons in institutional quarantine

On Monday, April 19, Maharashtra recorded 58,924 novel coronavirus cases taking the State's COVID-19 tally to 38,98,262. At present, there are 6,76,520 active cases in the State. With 52,412 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 31,59,240. With Mumbai recording 7381 cases in the day, it remains a major novel coronavirus hotspot in the state. 

351 deaths — 58 from Mumbai, 43 from Nagpur, 39 from Ahmednagar, 21 from Nanded, 19 each from Gondia and Osmanabad, 15 from Panvel, 12 from Satara, 11 each from Amravati and Nagpur, 10 from Latur, 9 each from Solapur, Navi Mumbai and Kalyan Dombivali, 8 each from Aurangabad and Akola, 7 each from Parbhani and Vasai Virar, 5 each from Thane and Jalgaon, 4 from Sindhudurg, three each from Chandrapur, Buldhana, Yavatmal, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Dhule, two from Washim and one each from Sangli and Kolhapur were reported on Monday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 220 occurred in the last 48 hours, 85 in the last week and the rest from the period before. Until now, a total of 60,824 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 2,40,75,811 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 37,43,968 persons are under home quarantine, 27,081 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 16.19 per cent, 81.04 per cent and 1.56 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 earlier in the day, 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 1,12,38,825 persons have been inoculated in India till now, 14,09,014 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.