Mumbai's Covid-19 Toll Zooms Past China, Maharashtra Tally Outstrips Saudi Arabia

Mumbai's Covid-19 deaths outstripped China as the city toll crossed the 5,000 mark on Tuesday, while Maharashtra raced past Saudi Arabia's total corona cases, health officials said.

For the second consecutive day, Covid-19 cases in the state were in the 5,000 range, with 5,134 new patients. The number of fatalities in the state was 224, taking the toll to 9,250.

The country's commercial capital has now catapulted past China which has notched 4,634 deaths and 83,565 cases, ranking at No 22 on the Worldometer.

At the current number of cases, Maharashtra (2,17,121) overtook Saudi Arabia which ranks thirteenth on the Worldometer (2,17,108 cases), after whizzing past Turkey, and Germany over the weekend, and last month, shooting past Canada and France.

Tuesday's data works out to one death recorded roughly every 7 minutes and a staggering 214 new cases notched every hour in the state.

The recovery rate in the state changed marginally from Monday's 54.37 per cent to 54.06 per cent, while the mortality rate remained unchanged at 4.26 per cent.

The Health Department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 89,294 are active. On the positive side, 3,296 fully cured patients returned home on Tuesday - taking the number of those discharged today to 118,558.

Of the total fatalities in the state on Tuesday, Mumbai alone accounted for 64 deaths, pulling up the city toll from to 5,002 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients shot up by 785 cases to touch 86,509.

There were also 54 fatalities in Thane, 37 in Pune, 13 in Nashik, 10 each in Palghar and Solapur, nine in Raigad, eight in Jalgaon, five in Aurangabad, three in Latur, two each in Dhule, Yavatmal and Jalna, and one each in Ahmednagar, Nanded, Osmanabad, and Satara. One was from another state.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday inaugurated massive Covid care facilities of 3,520-beds in Bandra Kurla Complex and Mahalaxmi Race Court, including 120 ICU beds.

Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray said the state is first in the country with a majority of all beds having either ICU or oxygen facilities, even as BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation announced a healthy 44-day doubling rate for the city.

The minister also announced the deployment of robotic technology for the care of patients and security of the doctors, nurses and other health staffers, with a robot named 'Gollar' joining duty at the Poddar Hospital, giving food, water and medicines to the Corona patients there.

After touring Thane for two days, Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis will go on a tour of a few other districts in northern Maharashtra from Wednesday while calling for more tests, ventilators, ICU beds, and other facilities to curb the Covid cases and fatalities in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The MMR (Thane Division) continues to see deaths and cases pile up, with a total of 6,652 Covid-19 fatalities so far, while a staggering 2,632 new patients, pushed up the number of positive cases to 151,770.

Thane cases have shot past the 50,000 mark to touch 50,829 with 1,381 fatalities - to emerge as the second worst-hit district after Mumbai in the state.

Pune district raced past the 30,000 mark by notching 30,131 patients and 926 deaths till now. The Pune division (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts), which has recorded 34,901 patients and 1,292 fatalities, remains behind MMR and Thane district.

Nashik division has 652 fatalities and 12,623 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad division with 342 deaths and 8,267 cases, and Akola division with 149 fatalities and 3,274 cases.

Kolhapur division has notched 57 deaths and 2,464 patients, Latur division 60 fatalities and 1,366 cases, and finally Nagpur division recorded 20 deaths and 2,311 cases.

Among the eight divisions in the state, two - Kolhapur and Nagpur - have recorded zero fatalities on Tuesday, though both had new Covid cases, while Chandrapur and Bhandara are the only two districts with zero Covid deaths so far.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 631,985 now, while those in institutional quarantine went down to 45,463