Mumbai: The recent spike of novel coronavirus cases in Maharashtra is due to multiple reasons including, gram panchayat elections, crowding at public transport and more, the Centre has said in its report.
A team of experts from the Centre comprising Nipun Vinayak, Joint Secretary of Health Ministry, Sanket Kulkarni, Deputy Director of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Ashish Ranjan, Professor at National Institute of TB and Respiratory Diseases visited Maharashtra on March 1, 2 have marked some reasons. The team visited Maharashtra probing the sudden surge in new cases in the state, which started from February.
In its report, the contribution of the recommencement of local trains in Mumbai behind the rise has not been separately pointed out as the report relates to the overall rise in cases in the state, but it mentions crowded public transport as one of the prime reasons. So are gram panchayat elections in Maharashtra. In January, elections were held in 12,711 Gram Panchayat spread across 34 districts in the state. While citing another reason, the team stated that people here are not approaching for following quarantine rules or getting testing done. Even some doctors, especially those in private, may not be counselling patients for testing or following rules, dismissing it as flu.
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A report shared by the government also stated that while the exact causes of the increase are not known, since laxity in COVID-19 behaviour is not specific to the state, possible factors are COVID-inappropriate behaviour due to lack of fear of disease, fatigue and enhanced aggregation due to marriage season and opening of schools and more.
The Centre had sent a team to Maharashtra and in other states which are witnessing the inclining trend after the situation hit its peak.
Meanwhile, after recording more than 10,000 new COVID-19 cases consecutively for two days, the state on Sunday reported 11,141 new cases, taking the total to 22,19,727 while 38 deaths pushed the total to 52,478, according to state’s health department.
