Maharashtra: Central team suggests total lockdown in Kolhapur and Sangli in view of rising COVID cases

The IMD has issued a red alert for five districts in Maharashtra forecasting extremely heavy rainfall (Photo: PTI)

Maharashtra: A Central team of experts have suggested a total lockdown in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur and Sangli. The Central team is of the concern as to why the transmission was not abating in the two districts despite a series of measures being undertaken regularly. The state health authorities have said that the report from the Central team members is still awaited.

Rajesh Tope, state health minister, expressed concern over 10 districts which have higher positivity rate compared to the rest of the state. The Central team has visited some of these places and emphasized on taking proper measures in the place like testing, contact tracing and vaccination. He further added that all the protocols are being taken care of on their end. I would soon be heading to Delhi and would reiterate the state’s request to the Centre to help with more vaccine doses.

Dr Sijeet Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control quoted saying to Indian Express that the authorities are still exploring and trying to understand whether the matter of concern is COVID variant and it is because of the variant that cases are not declining further in the state.

Dr Shashank Joshi, one of the experts from state Covid task force, said the rise of coronavirus infection in districts–Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Pune rural and even Ahmednagar and Nandurbar is concerning. He further added that there is something not going right. The entire western belt of Maharashtra is showing an upward trend in infection and is the main cause of concern.

Maharashtra is grappling with two severe crises at this moment–COVID-19 and heavy rainfall. The India Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for five districts in Maharashtra forecasting extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places for Wednesday and Thursday. The alert has also been issued for Raigad and Pune. An orange alert has been issued for Mumbai for the two days, indicating the higher possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall. Extremely heavy rainfall would mean precipitation of more than 204.5 mm in 24 hours, said the MeT office.