The Maharashtra government on Friday, 12 June, said that the lockdown in the state will will not be reannounced and that people must follow guidelines of safety issued by the government.
“Lockdown will not be reannounced. Chief Minister Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray has requested and appealed to the people to not crowd at places. Please follow the guidelines issued by the government for your own safety,”a tweet from CMO Maharashtra said.
The announcement comes as Maharashtra continues to be the state with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of cases in Maharashtra on Friday stood at 97,648, including 47,980 active cases and 3,590 deaths.
This comes to roughly one death every 9 minutes, and a whopping 150 new cases recorded every hour in the state, according to IANS.
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Maharashtra has been recording 100-plus fatalities and over 2,000 new patients daily for the past 10 days.
Despite the gloomy data on the growing number of COVID-19 deaths and cases, the state continues to record a considerably good recovery rate, standing today at 47.02 percent and a mortality (death) rate of 3.07 percent.
Health Minister Rajesh Tope announced on Thursday that an additional 500 ICU beds will be made available at the Seven Hills and St George hospitals in Mumbai within a week.
As the city continues to grapple with COVID-19, between 200 and 300 doctors from rural areas of the state will be brought to the city to help cope with the patients' rush.
In a video-conference with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Tope urged the Centre to relax the stringent norms governing the containment zones from 28 days to 14 days to give relief to the police force.
Maharashtra now has 95 labs for Covid-19 tests, including 41 in the private sector, while the number of tests conducted till date is 609,317, of which 16 percent have returned positive.
(With inputs from IANS.)
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