The number of COVID-19 patients in Maharashtra increased by 82 on Tuesday—the highest increase from a single day so far—and reached 302, a health official said.
59 of the new cases were from Mumbai. However, according to officials, the sudden increase is because of a glitch in the counting of cases in Mumbai in the last 4-5 days, with the accurate tally only being compiled on Tuesday.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, on the other hand, said the sudden jump in the number of patients was because the number of testing facilities has gone up. Besides, more and more people were recovering too, he added.
Of the 82 new patients who tested positive on Tuesday, 59 were from Mumbai city alone, while 13 were from neighbouring Thane district, five from Pune, three from Ahmednagar and two from Buldhana, said the official.
Archana Patil, director of the Public Health Department, said due to some glitch in computation, many cases were not reported in the last four-five days, and therefore there was a sudden increase on Tuesday.
"Mumbai city's figures come from local authorities while rest of the figures are compiled by the state health department. There was some error in counting and reporting of Mumbai's figures since March 27. As they were unable to tally the figures, it was decided not to mention them in the official communication," she told PTI over phone.
Hence, all 82 persons had not tested positive within a single day, she said.
Of the 302 patients in the state, 151 are from Mumbai city, while 48 are from Pune and rural areas. There are 36 positive patients in Thane region and 25 from Sangli district, the official said.
Nagpur has 16 positive patients while Ahmednagar and Yavatmal have eight and four COVID-19 positive patients, respectively. Buldana has three people while Satara and Kolhapur have two patients each.
The other districts such as Aurangabad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Gondia, Jalgaon and Nashik have reported one person each testing positive for COVID-19, the official said.
So far, 10 COVID-19 patients have died in the state, but at the same time, 39 others have been discharged after recovery.
"After the state identified two areas as hotspots for coronavirus infection, the total number of people hospitalised as a precautionary measure reached 406," said the official.
The state has put 23,913 people in home quarantine while 1,434 are in institutional quarantine. As many as 6,331 samples were tested and 5,780 tested negative for coronavirus infection, he said.
