FEAST: The Goan Chavath feast is as lavish as Kerala’s Onasadhya which serves a large variety of seasonal vegetarian food, along with the Lord Ganesh’s favourite sweet, the modak
Post the ten-day Chavath festivities in Goa and Konkan, the number of covid-19 cases have started rising again . The positivity rate which has come down below 1% has doubled. As in Kerala’s Onam festival, the celebration in the Konkan is also a community affair with extended family and friend coming together.
Maharashtra might witness a surge in coronavirus cases after the 10-day Ganpati festival just like Kerala did after Onam, according to state health officials. Covid-19 cases tend to increase after the festivals as people flout rules like wearing masks or maintaining social distance, state surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate said in a report in Hindustan Times.
At present, Maharashtra has the second-highest active cases in the country, after Kerala. Maharashtra has a total of 49,796 active cases as per the data by the state’s health department released on September 11. Besides, the state reported 3,075 new coronavirus infections and 35 Covid-related deaths yesterday. However, Saturday’s case count was the lowest since February 9 when the state reported 2,515 cases.
But the low case count coincided with low testing on Friday. In the last 24 hours, the state conducted 133,479 Covid-19 tests which is one of the lowest figures in months.
The average daily testing in September has been 169,020, while in August it was around 193,848 tests every day, as per the daily.
Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district continued to report the highest number of infections with 693 new cases on Saturday. It was followed by rural parts of Pune with 376 new infections. State’s Satara district reported the highest 12 fatalities in the state.
Among eight regions of Maharashtra, the Pune region reported the highest 1,018 new coronavirus cases. Mumbai region reported 710 new cases, Kolhapur region 413, Latur 94, Aurangabad 17, Nagpur 10, and Akola region reported eight new cases.
Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Satara, and Ahmednagar account for more than 75% of all cases in the state. The test positivity rate (TPR) over the last seven days in the state stood at 2.67%.
Dr Ishwar Gilada, secretary-general, Organised Medicine Academic Guild told the daily that the Covid variant was causing havoc. He said that on one hand, the government was asking people to celebrate low key and on the other hand buses have been arranged to transport people to the Konkan region.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra has ramped up the Covid vaccination drive in the state with 935,575 beneficiaries getting Covid-19 vaccine doses on Saturday.
The total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the state to date stood at 67,664,505.
Coutersy:www.livemint.com