Mumbai: In a sigh of relief to the authorities on the first day of the Break The Chain mission of Maharashtra, COVID-19 cases plummeted on Monday, health officials said.
A day after adding a record 57,074 new cases, saw cases came down to 47,288, taking its total to 30,57,885. Maharashtra's deaths also depleted to 155, compared with the highest (481) on April 2, taking up the total to 56,033 now - the highest in India.
The state recovery rate improved slightly, from 83.08 per cent on Sunday to 83.36 per cent.
After recording a five-digit tally of 11,206 on Sunday, the cases in the India's financial capital, Mumbai, reduced to 9,879, taking up the city tally to 4,62,560, while 21 fresh deaths took its toll to 11,800.
The Mumbai circle - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts - reported a lower figure of new cases, at 17,139, taking up the total to 9,72,452 now, while deaths stood at 20,661.
On the other side, the number of people sent to home isolation shot up to 24,16,981, while those in institutional quarantine increased to 20,115.
As the number of youths getting hit by COVID-19 is on the rise, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to include youth above 25 years in the national vaccination programme.
Meanwhile, the Central government has formed 50 high level multi-disciplinary public health teams and deployed them to 50 districts across Maharashtra. The teams will also visit Chhattisgarh and Punjab amid rise in the spread of infection.
The teams, comprising a clinician, epidemiologist and a public health expert, are being rushed to 30 districts of Maharashtra, to assist the state Health Departments and local authorities in surveillance, control and containment measures.
The teams will monitor the overall implementation of disease management, especially in testing, including surveillance and containment, appropriate behaviour and its imposition, availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics and vaccination progress.
The high-level teams will report to and coordinate with the nodal officers for the three states. They will submit daily reports on five aformentioned aspects.