In Maharashtra, the State Health Department's latest data shows that they has been a steady decline in COVID-19 cases. It said cities like Pune, Nashik and Nagpur, which were contributing more number of cases to the states tally are now witnessing fewer reduction in rate of infection. In Mumbai, the situation is yet to come under control, but a review of numbers shows that scenario is slightly improving in the metropolis.

Analysis of the data of patients in the last four weeks shows that the number of newly infected COVID-19 patients in Maharashtra are decreasing every week. In the second week of September, 1,53,331 new patients were found. While, the number in the first week of October was 92,246. This means that the number of patients have decreased by about 40 per cent.

Between September 10 and October 10, the recovery rate has improved from 70.72 per cent to 82.76 per cent. In addition, the proportion of positive patients in laboratory samples has come down from 24.6 per cent to 15.06 per cent.

Also, last four weeks have seen a slight decline in laboratory tests. There are two main reasons for this - one is, as the number of positive patients decreases on a daily basis, the number of people in contact with these infected patients naturally decreases and the other is number of patients coming to the fever clinic are also declining.

To keep the situation under control ahead of the festive season, the Mumbai civic body on Monday launched a mass drive against those not wearing face masks and said it will penalise nearly 20,000 such citizens every day. BMC commissioner I S Chahal said that the drive will continue for at least a month. He added that he himself will monitor the situation every day.

He said that it was observed that a large number of citizens under the MCGM do not wear face masks and this can lead to the situation getting difficult. He further added that the city civic body has set a penalty of 200 rupees for not wearing mask in public places.