Mumbai: Coronavirus has been causing havoc in Maharashtra and a record number of cases were registered on Thursday. According to the data of the Maharashtra Health Department, as many as 25,833 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours, which is the highest number of Covid-19 cases reported in a single day so far. With this, Mumbai has also recorded the highest number of cases so far and in 24 hours, 2,877 people tested positive for coronavirus.
Prior to this, Maharashtra recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases on September 11 last year when 24,886 new cases were reported. At the same time, the highest number of 2,848 coronavirus cases were registered on October 7, 2020 in Mumbai. So far, more than 53,000 people have died due to coronavirus in Maharashtra.
Coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly in Maharashtra and the central government has described this as the beginning of the second wave of the virus. In wake of this, the Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan recently wrote a letter to the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra after the visit of the central team. The central team had told that Maharashtra is passing through the second wave of COVID-19 and effective measures need to be taken to prevent infection. He told that it is necessary to do tracking, testing, different cases and contact tracing.
Amid the rising cases, there are speculations that the Uddhav Thackeray led government might reimpose a lockdown in Mumbai and some other cities, which are witnessing a high number of cases. However, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope has denied the possibility of a lockdown.
Speaking to a leading news channel, the minister said that even though the cases are rising, the government is very well prepared to handle it and there's no need for lockdown in Mumbai.
"Not at all. Lockdown is the last resort. For lockdown there are norms - hospitals have to be overwhelmed or there has to be unavailability of beds or doctors. Only in such cases, we go for lockdown. We are very well prepared, there are lots of beds vacant. 85% of patients are asymptomatic and are in home quarantine. There's no reason for a lockdown," the minister said when asked about the possibility of lockdown in Mumbai.
