As Maharashtra tops the Omicron tally in India with 167 cases, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said a meeting will be held with the state Covid-19 task force “in the next two days” to take a call on more curbs. Thackeray’s announcement came after the state health department, in a presentation before the state cabinet on Monday, warned of a surge in active cases by mid-January.
Dr Pradeep Vyas, additional chief secretary, said active cases have increased by nearly 61% in the last 20 days. Maharashtra had 6,200 active cases on December 6, and the number reached 10,000 on December 26. “Although the number of tests conducted have also increased, the rate at which cases have surged is a cause of concern. A state task force meeting will be convened in the next two days.”
Maharashtra government on Friday imposed night curfew to prevent the spread of infections and Omicron variant cases. The state government announced fresh curbs including ban on gatherings of more than five people in all public places from 9 pm to 6 am.
Citing doubling of Covid-19 cases, especially in Europe as well as in the UK, due to the Omicron variant, the state government observed Omicron has spread to 110 countries around the world. Thackeray said that due to the high rate of spread of the virus, some restrictions should be imposed at present and further restrictions should be considered in the future. The Chief Minister also called for caution and asked people to follow Covid appropriate behaviour and use masks properly.
The department, meanwhile, said that the daily detection in cases has tripled in the last six days—from 544 cases on December 20 to 1,648 on December 26. The state’s positivity rate was 1.06 % as of Monday.
In a sort of redux of the second wave in the state, more than 88% of Covid cases in the city last week came from high-rises and not slums, civic data shows.
Seeing the surge in cases, the corporation carried out an analysis of the 3,300-odd positive cases reported in the previous week. “Almost 88% cases were from buildings. Most wards are not finding many cases from slum pockets,” said additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani. During the second wave, a similar trend was noted, the reasons for which were attributed to higher exposure among slum dwellers to better immunity and testing bias.
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