In Maharashtra, the highest daily single day spike of 13,165 new cases were recorded yesterday, thereby taking the Covid tally in the state to 6,28,642. The death toll crossed the 21 thousand mark to reach 21,033 with 346 deaths reported yesterday. According to Maharashtra’s Public Health Department, the active case count stands at 1,60,413. Mumbai recorded 1,132 new cases and 46 deaths, taking its tally to 1,31,542 and the death toll to 7,268. The number of active cases in Mumbai stands at 17,914.

A total of 9,011 Covid -19 patients were discharged yesterday in the state, leading to a tally of 4,46,881 recovered patients.

However, there has been a record increase in the number of patients infected with the disease. Notwithstanding the rising number of cases, civic bodies in Mumbai’s neighbouring Thane and Kalyan Dombivali areas have allowed shops to reopen on either side of the road on all days. The shop timings have also been extended from 5 PM earlier to 7 PM now.

According to the order, all shops, except malls, market complexes, vegetable markets, gyms and swimming pools, outside COVID-19 hotspots can remain open on all days. The order also stated that protocols laid down for preventing the spread of COVID-19 should be strictly followed, and action would be taken against business establishments violating the guidelines.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation has resumed its services this morning. The first Shivneri bus left from Mumbai to Pune at 7 this morning, while the next bus is scheduled to leave at around 9 am. Just a couple of days ahead of Maharashtra’s most popular Ganesh Utsav, the state government has permitted resumption of inter-district bus transport service.

Nationally,the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients continues its upward streak and has reached around 74 per cent today. With sustained, pre-emptive and timely interventions by the government nearly 21 lakh people in the country have successfully recovered from COVID-19. India registered nearly 59000 recoveries in the last 24 hours and so far, a total of 20 lakh 96 thousand 664 people have recovered in the country.

The case fatality rate continues to show steady decline and now stands at 1.90 per cent. Nearly 30 States and Union Territories in the country have even lower fatality rates than the national average.

The Health Ministry said that around 69000 new cases of Covid-19 have been registered in the country in the last 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 28 lakh 36 thousand 926. Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is 6,86,395. In a single day, 977 deaths have also been reported taking the toll to 53 thousand 866.

India is continuously stepping up it's COVID testing capacity. In the last 24 hours, the country moved closer to testing record one million samples in a day. With testing more than 9 lakh samples in a day, the nation achieved another milestone today. The positivity rate continues to decline despite increased testing and stands at around 7.5 per cent of the total samples tested.

The Union Health Ministry informed that the remarkable feat has been achieved by rigorously following the “Test, Track and Treat” strategy. It said, early identification through Testing, Surveillance and contact tracing along with focus on timely and appropriate clinical treatment of COVID-19 patients has ensured that only a small proportion of active cases require ventilator support.

The week-wise average daily tests witnessed a sharp increase from around 2.3 lakh in the first week of July 2020 to over 8 lakh in the current week.

With 9 lakh 18 thousand 470 tests yesterday, the cumulative COVID sample tests done so far in the country have further risen to reach 3 crore 26 lakhs 61 thousand 252 tests.

Government said that the strong determinant of this milestone has been a sustained expansion of testing labs across the country. From merely one lab in January this year, the country today has 1494 labs. Out of these 977 are government labs while the remaining 517 are private labs.