Even as cities in Maharashtra continue to see rising cases of COVID-19, the cases have started to decline in the state’s hinterland. At least 206 out of 341 coronavirus-affected villages in Aurangabad district have managed to beat the disease and have zero patients as of today.

Sincere efforts by the Aurangabad administration like monitoring of containment zones and constant checks on elderly villagers has helped in controlling the spread of infection.

According to the chief executive officer of Aurangabad Zilla Parishad, Mangesh Gondavale as many as 67 villages have not had a single patient in the last 28 days, no cases were detected in 63 villages in 14 days and 76 other areas don't have a patient as of today.

With around 8000 cases in rural Aurangabad, the recovery rate stands at 77 percent. There are 22 COVID care centres with 2,005 beds, while plans are afoot to increase the bed capacity to 6,000. On the other hand, containment efforts in cities like Mumbai and Pune are showing no major success. After a gap of 55 days, Mumbai’s biggest slum area of Dharavi reported a spike of 33 cases today. Amid calls for implementing strict measures like ensuring that people don't roam around without wearing masks and maintain social distancing, the area’s active case tally has shot up to 124.

Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has warned officials of strict action if found negligent in maintaining Jumbo COVID facilities in Pune. Mr. Pawar has asked district administration to install sirens on tankers that carry oxygen so that transportation is not affected.

Meanwhile, India has been continuously reporting high number of recoveries.Maharashtra is leading this tally with more than 2,60,000 cases followed by Karnataka with more than 1,00,000 cases.Nearly 74% of the total Active Cases are in nine most affected States. Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh contribute more than 48% of the total active cases. As many as 1,209 deaths have been registered in the past 24 hours. Maharashtra has reported 495 deaths followed by Karnataka with 129 deaths, whereas Uttar Pradesh has logged 94 deaths.

 A total of 70,880 recoveries have been registered in the last 24 hours in the country. Maharashtra has alone contributed more than 14,000 and Andhra Pradesh has contributed more than 10,000 to the single day recoveries. With this, the total number of recoveries has touched 35,42,663 taking the Recovery Rate to 77.65%. 60% of the new recovered cases are being reported from five States, viz. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.96,551 new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours.

Of this, Maharashtra alone has more than 23,000 and Andhra Pradesh has more than 10,000.Nearly 57% of the new cases are reported from only five States. These are the same States that are also contributing 60% of the new recovered cases.The total number of active cases in the country stands at 9,43,480 as on date.