Curbs back: From 9 pm to 6 am, ban on assembly of more than 5 persons in Maharashtra

The orders come in the backdrop of a spike in Covid-19 cases. Maharashtra on Friday registered 1,410 cases, an increase of 20 per cent over the 1,179 cases reported on Thursday. The rise was highest in almost two months. The state also reported 12 deaths, taking the total toll to 1,41,404.

Also, the tally of Omicron infections in Maharashtra rose to 108 on Friday with 20 new cases coming to light. Eleven new cases were reported from Mumbai, six from Pune, two from Satara and one from Ahmednagar. With this, Covid-19 case tally in the state rose to 66,54,755.

The order signed by Chief Secretary Debashsish Chakrabarty said, “The Omicron variant has now emerged as the fastest spreading variant of Covid-19 in the past few days across the world. It has become the dominant variant in the USA and in many countries in Europe. The state already has recorded 88 (108 reported till Friday night) Omicron cases over the past few days. It is also starting to see an upward trend of Covid-19 cases over the past week with more than 1,000 positive
cases being registered every day for the first time in the last two months.”

The order added that in view of the congregations expected due to Christmas, New Year celebrations and the marriage season, it is necessary to impose restrictions.

Apart from the prohibitory orders imposed in the night, the order said that in cases of marriages, where the movement of people is staggered, the total attendees at any moment shall not exceed 100 in enclosed spaces and 250 in open to sky areas or 25 per cent of total capacity of the hall, whichever is less.
In case of social, political or religious functions and gatherings, where presence of attendees is not generally continual, the total number of attendees shall not exceed 100 for closed spaces and 250 for open to sky areas or 25 per cent of the space, whichever is less.

Moreover, in case of other functions not covered under the above mentioned categories, the total number of attendees for closed spaces shall not exceed 50 per cent of the capacity declared by licensing authority, wherein seatings are not fixed and moveable. In functions to be held in open to sky premises, the crowd should not exceed 25 per cent of the capacity of the space. In case of sports events and competitions, the number of spectators shall not exceed 25 per cent of the capacity of the space where it is being held.

Restaurants, gyms, spas, cinema halls and theatres will continue to operate at 50 per cent capacity.

On December 23, the state had recorded 1,179 Covid-19 cases — 1,10,997 tests conducted — with a positivity rate of 1.06 per cent. On December 24, it surged to 1,410 cases with 1,18,157 samples being tested. The daily positivity rate also increased to 1.19 per cent.

Data shared by the Union government on Friday showed that Maharashtra is the second biggest contributor to the nation’s Covid-19 tally after Kerala. In the last two weeks, the state has recorded a 0.9 per cent positivity rate, which is higher than the nation’s average of 0.6 per cent. In the same period, the state had recorded 94 cases per million against the nation’s average of 72.

In the last seven days, the state’s active Covid-19 cases increased from 6,942 to 8,426, recording a 21.3 per cent surge. Now, all the 36 districts have active cases. Hingoli and Bhandara are the lowest in the list with only one active case each.

Mumbai has contributed nearly 42.6 per cent of the state’s total count on Friday. After recording 490 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday and 602 new cases on Thursday, the city reported 683 infected patients on Friday from among the 40,472 tests conducted in the last 24 hours. This is the highest one-day count since October 6. The positivity rate stood at 1.68 per cent, which was 1.52 per cent on Thursday. In all, Mumbai has reported 7,69,433 cases till now.

In the last five days, the number of active cases in Mumbai has increased by 35.5 per cent. As per BMC data, there were 2,081 active cases until December 20, which spiked to 3,227 by December 24. Similarly, the doubling rate in the city has dropped to 1,536 days from 2,288 days during the same period.

The state Covid-19 task force attributed this to the violation of Covid-19 protocol amid the ongoing festival and wedding seasons. Most cases are being reported from clusters where Delta derivatives are more predominant.

“There is a spike but it is not the third wave. Although the positivity rate has gone up, the severity of infection is less, along with a low fatality rate. We are getting closer to ‘endamacity’. But if the spike remains constant till February 15, there will be a huge cluster of patients,” said Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the task force.

Dr Rahul Pandit, another member, added: “It will be too early to call it a third wave. We have to wait for another two weeks to understand the epidemiological characteristics of the spread of the virus.”

Amid speculations that the sudden spike in cases is due to the undetected transmission of the Omicron variant, Dr Rajesh Karyakarte, state coordinator of genome sequencing, said that over 1,200 samples have undergone genome sequencing to look for the presence of Omicron in the community, but so far, no such case has been detected.

“In November, when Omicron was detected, five of the labs (Pune-COG) started conducting genome sequencing to gauge if the variant was already present at the community level, but the results have been promising. So, we can say that it hasn’t spread at the community level,” said Karyakarte.

Of the 20 Omicron cases reported on Friday, 15 patients have history of international travel, one patient has history of domestic travel while four others had come in close contact with them. One patient is a minor while six patients are above 60 years of age. All new patients are asymptomatic. Among the adults, 12 these patients were fully vaccinated and seven unvaccinated.

Mumbai has recorded 46 Omicron cases so far, including those found following screening at the Mumbai international airport. Pimpri-Chinchwad has reported 19 cases, Pune rural area 15 and Pune city seven.

Health Minister Rajesh Tope advised people to get vaccinated. “As seen across the globe, despite being fully vaccinated, people are contracting Omicron. But the severity of the infection among such patients is low. So, I urge people to get both the jabs,” he said.

The state, meanwhile, is planning to raise the issue of booster doses with the Centre. The chief secretary is likely to write to Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on the necessity of booster doses, said officials.