Maharashtra registers 66,159 cases taking COVID tally to 45.39 lakh; fatality rate at 1.5%

On Thursday, April 29, Maharashtra recorded 66,159 novel coronavirus cases taking the State's COVID-19 tally to 45,39,553. At present, there are 6,70,301 active cases in the State. With 68,537 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 37,99,266. In a heartening development, Mumbai too recorded only 4192 new cases. 

771 deaths —  130 from Pune, 82 from Mumbai, 65 from Nagpur, 38 from Ahmednagar, 36 from Solapur, 35 from Nashik, 32 from Satara, 30 from Jalgaon, 27 from Aurangabad, 26 from Nandurbar, 19 from Sangli, 18 from Jalna, 17 each from Thane, Kalyan Dombivali and Bhandara, 16 each from Yavatmal, Beed and Pimpri Chinchwad, 12 from Sindhudurg, 11 each from Nanded and Panvel, 8 each from Amravati and Wardha, 7 each from Ulhasnagar, Parbhani and Osmanabad, 6 each from Mira Bhayandar and Chandrapur, 5 from Hingoli, 4 from Latur, three from Ratnagiri, two each from Vasai Virar and Raigad and one from Akola were reported on Tuesday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 383 occurred in the last 48 hours, 165 in the last week, and 223 from the period before. Until now, a total of 67,985 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 2,68,16,075 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 41,19,759 persons are under home quarantine, 30,118 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate, and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 16.93  per cent, 83.69 per cent and 1.5 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 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. On Wednesday, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray announced that people aged between 18-45 will be administered the vaccine free of cost. A total of 1,33,57,460 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra till now, 25,09,212 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.