Pune: Pune city, which is now called as India’s ‘corona capital’, has surpassed the grim mark of one lakh in terms of the number of persons infected with the novel coronavirus. Pune city on Thursday witnessed 1,764 new positive cases taking the grim total to 1,00,459. On Thursday, 26 fatalities were reported in the city.

In what is more upsetting for the Pune management is that the city has the maximum number of active cases in the nation. It has also outstripped Delhi in terms of the number of persons infected with the contagion, recording the highest number of COVID-19 infections in the nation.

As city’s COVID-19 count crosses 1 lakh, Pune Mayor stated that focus on increasing oxygen beds, ventilators. Talking to ANI, Mayor Murlidhar Mohol said, “Our focus is to increase oxygen beds and ventilators.” He also admitted that the city has a shortage of specialised staff and need to recruit staff members to operate such equipment.

Since the state government has given relaxations on the lockdown, Pune city is witnessing a surge in the spread of the novel virus. In August, Pune's first sero survey witnessed that over 50 per cent of residents from five high-incidence areas in the city have been bare to the contagion. The survey, which is done to find the attendance of specific antibodies and measure the occurrence of the infection in the population, was conducted by taking samples of 1,664 respondents.

With a surge in COVID-19 cases in the city has also brought some major questions that where the ventilators and ICU beds? It is being observed that even the first Jumbo Hospital in the city which was inaugurated recently with the hands of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is lacking with enough facilities.

The death of TV journalist Pandurang Raykar and former Mayor Datta Ekbote due to unavailability of oxygenated beds and ambulance has brought the severe reality of the situation to the front.