After a declining trend of Covid-19 daily cases for over two months, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Sunday registered more number of infections than recoveries.
On June 20, the PMC registered 266 new Covid-19 cases while the recoveries were at 255. The city also witnessed seven patients succumbing to the viral infection taking the total toll to 8,531.
“The active cases have shown a rise for the first time after two months of continuous decline from April 18. The active cases had dropped to 2,559 on June 19 and it has increased to 2,563 on June 20,” said a civic officer.
The PMC had eased the lockdown restrictions from June 14 allowing most of the activities to resume following Covid appropriate behaviour. However, huge crowds were witnessed in market places and tourist destinations after which the civic administration decided to re-impose the weekend lockdown instructing non-essential stores and services to remain closed. Malls, saloons, wellness centres and beauty parlours are also to remain closed on weekends. People are not permitted to visit tourist places on Saturday and Sunday.
The civic body has already witnessed a rise in number of Covid patients in six of the 15 ward office areas last week compared to the week before.
However, the number of critical patients continued to decline with 373 of the total patients either on ventilator or ICU. The number of occupancy of oxygen beds also continued to drop. A total of 539 patients were on oxygen support as on June 20.
The mortality rate of Covid-19 has increased to 1.79 percent from 1.66 percent two months ago. “It is obvious that if there is a rise in active cases, then it would slowly reflect in demand of oxygen beds. The situation is well under control but it is necessary to ensure that there should not be a trend of rising of active caseload,” the officer added.
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The PMC has been working hard to scale up its health infrastructure with special focus on creating beds for paediatric patients in view of a possible third wave. The oxygen generation plants are being set up in the civic hospitals while a new dedicated Covid hospital is being developed in Baner.
Meanwhile, NCP came under sharp criticism after massive crowd gathered at the inauguration its new city unit office in Shivajinagar, a function which was chaired by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. Several local NCP leaders have been booked for violation of Covid-19 rules.
