Now, Maharashtra daily records more cases than United Kingdom
Mumbai : Exactly 90 days after Covid-19 sneaked into Maharashtra on March 9 through a Pune-based couple, coronavirus has infected a staggering 88,528 persons in the state -- with the current rate of daily infections surpassing that of the United Kingdom!
With 266,598 cases, India has already overtaken Covid-19's alleged birthplace, China (around 83,040 patients), France (150,315), Turkey (170,132), Iran (171,789), Germany (184,193), Peru (191,758), Italy (234,998) and Spain (241,550) as on June 8.
India is now just an arm's length behind the UK current tally (total 286,198 cases), with Russia way ahead (476,658), preceded by Brazil (672,846) and the current coronavirus global headquarters, USA (1,915,712).
According to the Worldometer Covid-19 data for the past one week, the UK recorded 1,653 new cases (June 2) compared with Maharashtra's 2,287 on that day.
Similarly, on June 3, UK notched 1,871 more patients (Maharashtra 2,560), on June 4, UK 1,805 (2,933), June 5 UK 1,650 (2,436), June 6 UK 1,557 (2,739), June 7 UK 1,326 (3,007) and June 8 UK 1,205 cases (Maharashtra 2,553 patients).
Just nine days after the first confirmed cases in Maharashtra (March 9), Covid-19 claimed its first victim in Mumbai (March 17),
In three months, the virus has devoured 3,169 people in the state, including 1,702 in the country's commercial capital, with a dubious distinction of being "India's corona capital".
Since over the past fortnight, Maharashtra has been recording 75-plus fatalities, often shooting above 100, and new patients over 2K daily, with the previous single-day highest figure of 3,041 infections notched on May 24.
Despite climbing onto Covid-19 bandwagon belatedly -- India's first case was recorded on January 30 in Kerala, Maharashtra's first case came only on the 38th day, on March 9 -- but thereafter, this state quickly broke all records to grab the top slot in the country now.
In fact, for several days -- around April 10 -- the state had notched the highest "mortality rate" in the world, as per official figures, in terms of the number of the deaths per hundred infections, (IANS - April 14).
Due to a series of stringent measures and interventions, the state successfully tamed the virus by bringing down the death rate to 3.57 per cent -- but it is still much higher than India's mortality rate of 2.80 -- while the global average stands at 5.78 per cent, today.
What started innocuously in Pune on March 9, followed by Mumbai on March 10 and Nagpur the following day -- each city having an international airport -- the coronavirus pandemic has today spread to all 36 districts in the state.