5 dead, 80 municipal workers found Covid positive in Maharashtra’s Amaravati, lockdown ends on March 8

MUMBAI: In more worrying signs for the state of Maharashtra, at least 80 workers of the Amravati Municipal Corporation have now tested positive for the deadly coronavirus. So far, the coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of at least five municipal workers.

Among those infected with the virus are an engineer, system manager, legal officer, deputy engineer, doctor and some clerical staff, according to Municipal Commissioner Prashant Rode. Around 3000 employees work in various departments of the Amravati Municipal Corporation and a large number of them are contractual employees.

In the District Collector’s Office, around 60-65 employees have been found Corona positive. The total number of employees working in the District Magistrate's office is 200. 

Besides this, around 56 employees working at Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University have been found to be corona positive. In the last 24 hours, nearly 673 new cases of coronavirus were reported in Amravati district and 9 of them died during treatment at various hospitals.

The district administration is making serious attempts to bring the coronavirus situation under control in Amravati. But the rising numbers are extremely worrying. 

Various places and offices in Amravati city have currently become coronavirus hotspots. Sainagar, Rajapeth, Dastur Nagar, Arjun Nagar, Shyam Nagar, Camp, Rukmini Nagar, Ambapeth have become the new coronavirus hotspots in the district.

All this is happening despite the state government announcing a lockdown and later extending it till March 8 to control the outbreak of the virus in the district. As per the state government figures, nearly 30,067 patients have fully recovered from the coronavirus and currently, 7002 patients are undergoing treatment at various Covid hospitals in the Amravati district.

Maharashtra reported 8,998 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the infection tally to 21,88,183, while the death toll reached 52,340 as 60 patients succumbed to the infection.

A state health official said the number of single-day cases was down as compared to Wednesday, although the per-day fatality count increased. The state had reported 9,855 new COVID-19 cases and 42 fatalities on Wednesday.

A total of 6,135 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, which took the overall recovery count to 20,49,484. The number of active cases is 85,144 at present. The state's COVID-19 recovery rate is 93.66 per cent, while the fatality rate is 2.39 per cent, the officials said.

With 86,794 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the state's total test count has risen to 1,65,96,300. Currently, 3,91,288 people are in-home quarantine and 4,109 others in institutional quarantine. In Mumbai, 1,104 new cases were reported during the day, which took its tally to 3,29,846, while the death toll went up to 11,492 with five fresh fatalities.

A total of 933 people tested positive in Pune city, which took its total count to 2,12,189. With four new deaths, its toll went up to 4,583. According to the officials, the new infection cases reported in Nagpur, Pimpri Chinchwad, Nashik, Aurangabad and Amravati municipal corporation limits were 904, 492, 224, 276 and 389 respectively.