Health officials in Maharashtra yesterday expressed the hope that the state would soon ‘flatten’ the Covid-19 curve as deaths and new cases continued to decline for the past one week, and recovery rates improved.
The state recorded 137 deaths compared with the peak of 515 on September 15, but higher than 125 on October 19.
Fatalities shot up from 43,015 to 43,152 yesterday.
The state recorded 6,417 new cases - less than one-third compared with the peak single-day tally of 24,886 on September 11.
The total number of infections yesterday was 16,38,961.
The state’s recovery rate meanwhile continued to remain high and increased from 88.52% to 88.78% while the mortality rate stood 2.63%.
However, there seems to be no respite for Kerala as the state saw 8,253 new cases and 25 deaths yesterday.
State Health Minister K K Shailaja said that 6,468 people had now tested negative, taking the total number of recovered to 287,261 while the number of active cases rose to 97,417 and the death toll to 1,306.
A total of 67,593 samples was tested in the past 24 hours, while 283,517 people were under observation at various places in the state, including 23,455 in hospitals.
In Bengaluru, meanwhile, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar said healthcare warriors, including doctors, nurses and paramedics would be the first to get vaccinated for Covid immunity when introduced.
The central government is preparing to introduce a proven vaccine across the country after its approval by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
“We are collecting data of healthcare workers as per guidelines and standard operating procedures of the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry,” the minister said in a statement.
Sudhakar said other priority groups, including senior citizens and people with co-morbidities would be vaccinated in a phased manner after the healthcare warriors.
“The state government will use the cold chain system of routine immunisation under universal immunisation programme (UIP) for storing the vaccine when made available to the state by the Centre,” Sudhakar said.
The cold chain facility for storing the vaccine will be made available in all the 30 districts across the southern state.
The healthcare warriors across the state also include ANMs (auxiliary nurse-midwives), ASHAs (accredited social health activists), Anganwadi workers, medical officers, scientists and research staff and all those working in the healthcare sector.
“The state is undertaking IEC (information, education communication) activities through various forums to reach all the health facilities in government and private for timely data collection,” Sudhakar added.
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