As of today, March 30, Pune district in Maharastra has 59, 475 active corona cases — the highest across all the districts in India. This is followed by five more districts in Maharashtra reporting the highest active cases — Mumbai at 46, 248; Nagpur 45,322; Thane 35,264; Nashik 26,553; and Aurangabad 21,282. 

Apart from these top six districts reporting the highest COVID-19 active cases, Bengaluru Urban, Nanded (Maharashtra), Delhi and Ahmednagar (Maharashtra) are among the top 10 districts with highest such cases. These details were shared by by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as part of its press briefing today. 

The health ministry’s data shows that COVID-19 cases are registering a rise across the country with 56,211 new cases reported today on March 30. 

In the past one week, Maharashtra has conducted 1,028,870 tests with a positivity rate of 23.44 per cent. Punjab conducted 217,711 tests with a positivity rate of 8.82 per cent followed by Chhattisgarh where positivity rate was found to be 8.24 per cent. National average positivity rate during the last week was 5.65 per cent.

Average daily cases in Maharashtra have jumped from 3,051 on February 10 last month to 34,456 on March 24. Average daily deaths have also increased from 32 to 118 in the same time period. 

In Punjab, the average daily cases have jumped from 240 (February 10) to 2,742 (March 24), and average daily deaths from eight to 52.

In order to respond to the rising COVID-19 cases, which is also being termed as a second wave of corona, the states are expected to ramp up testing with focus on RT-PCR tests. There is a need for effective and prompt isolation of those infected and tracing of their close contacts.

Meanwhile, in a recent study of 11,064 samples genome sequenced, 807 were found to be of the UK variant, 47 South African variant and one Brazilian variant. 

As of March 30 morning, a total of 61,113,354 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the country. April 1 onwards, any citizen above the age of 45 years would be eligible for vaccination.

So far, at the national level, 16.53 per cent vaccine doses have been administered at private facilities. Half the doses administered in Chandigarh are at private facilities followed by Telangana (48.39 per cent) and Delhi (43.11 per cent).  

Apart from administering over 61 million COVID-19 vaccine doses domestically, India has also exported 64 million vaccine doses to around 77 countries. This export has been temporarily halted to meet the vaccine demand within the country. 

Also Read: Ripple effect of COVID-19’s second wave in India being felt across the globe