By Quaid Najmi
Mumbai, May 20 (IANS): Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded 65 Covid-19 deaths and 2,250 new cases, officials said here, as the state continued to notch fatalities above 50 and new patients over 2K consecutively since the past four days.
This comes to a staggering one death every 22 minutes, and around 93 new cases every hour in the state.
With 65 fatalities - down by 11 from highest-ever 76 of May 19 - the state death toll now stands at 1,390 and the total number of coronavirus patients increased from 37,136 to 39,397 now.
The Health Department said with the new cases, the state had 27,581 active cases now.
Of the total 65 deaths, 41 were recorded in Mumbai alone - the second highest on a single-day after May 19 - taking the city's toll to 841 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here shot up by 1,372 cases to touch 24,118.
Mumbai's Dharavi slum alone continued to be a major hotspot and concern for the health authorities, notching 25 new cases, taking the total number of patients to 1,378, and 56 deaths to date.
Besides Mumbai's 41 deaths, there were 15 in Pune, 5 in Thane (Navi Mumbai and Ulhasnagar), besides 2 each Solapur and Aurangabad.
They comprised 46 men and 19 women, and nearly 74 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.
On the positive side, 679 fully cured patients returned home on Wednesday, taking the number of those discharged to 10,318.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari took a review of the Covid-19 situation in the state with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and top officials wherein he suggested augmenting the number of beds for Coronavirus patients.
Earlier on Wednesday, Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar urged the people to "accept" corona as a way of life and asked the government to restore normalcy in transport, trade, commerce and business activities.
Slamming the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for launching an agitation targeting the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), state Congress President Balasaheb Thorat dismissed it as a "save BJP protest" and urged them not to adopt an "anti-Maharashtra stand".
Rebutting the Opposition claims, Thorat pointed out how the state BJP leaders donated to the PM CARE Fund instead of the CM Relief Fund, and did not work to get an economic package approved for the state, but instead keep going and talking to the Governor.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (Thane Division) continued to cause huge concerns with 950 Covid-19 deaths and cases shooting to 30,025.
Though trailing a distant second after Mumbai, Pune Division's fatalities touched 255, besides 5,152 patients.
The next major area of concern is Nashik Division with 85 deaths and 1,344 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 37 fatalities and 1,236 cases, and finally Akola Division with 34 deaths and 577 cases.
There's also Latur Division with 6 deaths and 146 cases, Kolhapur Division with 5 deaths and 322 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 7 deaths and 447 patients.
Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased from 386,192 to 404,892, and those in institutional quarantine went up from 21,150 to 26,752, while the state's containment zones increased from 1,765 on Tuesday to 1,849 on Wednesday.
As many as 15,495 health teams have carried out a survey of a population of around 65.11 lakh in the state.