Maharashtra reports over 1,000 Covid cases with 9 deaths in 24 hours

Maharashtra on Wednesday saw a massive spike in the daily Covid-19 cases that crossed the 1,000 mark with 1,115 new infections - out of which 320 cases were reported from Mumbai alone. According to the state health bulletin, nine deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours.

Out of the nine deaths, five deaths were reported from Mumbai circle - two in Mumbai and Thane municipal corporation each, one in Vasai Virar; three deaths were reported in Pune and one in Akola.

The spike in cases comes amid reports that India is moving towards the endemic stage and the number of daily cases will rise for the next days.

Even though cases are increasing, hospitalisation is low and the current rise in cases is due to XBB.1.16 variant which is a Sub-variant of Omicron, the official sources told the news agency.

While Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the dominant variant, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape.

The prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6% in February this year to 35.8% in March.

However, no evidence of an increase in hospitalisation or mortality has been reported, official sources said.

On the other hand, India on Wednesday recorded 7,830 new coronavirus infections, the highest single-day spike in 7 months.

The active cases increased to 40,215, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The death toll has increased to 5,31,016 with 16 new fatalities being reported - two each in Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and one each in Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, and five reconciled by Kerala - the data updated at 8 am stated.