By Thursday evening, there were 2,200 active cases in the city of which 500 are in home isolation. (Representational)
Even as the number of new Covid-19 cases in Pimpri-Chinchwad dropped further on Tuesday, the civic administration has expressed concern over the sudden spike in mortality rate, which has crossed 2 per cent.
On Tuesday, Pimpri-Chinchwad registered 242 Covid-19 cases, marginally higher than the 240 reported on Monday.
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Compared to September, when 900-1,000 new cases were reported per day, October continues to witness a drastic fall in Covid-19 cases. “… On two consecutive days, we have hit a new low. I think we had seen this number somewhere in June. We hope the situation remains the same and does not change even during the forthcoming festive season,” said Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar.
The PCMC chief said the civic body was more concerned about the mortality rate of Covid-19 patients. “The mortality rate has been around 1.7 per cent, on an average. However, in past 10 days or so, we have seen a sudden spike and it has crossed 2 per cent,” he said.
Till Tuesday, Pimpri-Chinchwad has reported 1,447 deaths of local residents due to Covid-19 and death of 598 patients from outside PCMC limits.
Urging local residents to get themselves tested the moment they develop mild symptoms, Hardikar said he will once again hold a Facebook live event and release a video appealing residents to not delay tests and treatment.
“People have suddenly become more careless. They are taking things for granted. Many of them are delaying their tests when they have mild symptoms. The problem is it does not take much time for mild symptoms to become severe and that is the reason why we are witnessing a sudden spike in mortality rate,” he said.
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Hardikar said they have been urging clinic doctors to urge their patients to get tested as early as possible. “However, this does not seem to be happening. Patients are landing up at hospitals only when their condition worsens. I have held meetings with doctors of Indian Medical Association and will once again hold a dialogue with them…”.
Dr Rajendra Wable, dean of YCM Hospital and Medical College, said, “The hospital had seen a spike in deaths in September and early this month, but since last few days we are witnessing a big drop in Covid-19 related deaths.”
Meanwhile, the PCMC health department has begun an investigation into the death of a 21-year-old patient on Saturday. The Indian Express had reported that two hours after the patient was discharged from a private hospital, she died at a PCMC jumbo facility at Nehrunagar.
PCMC additional health chief Dr Pavan Salve said, “The municipal commissioner had asked us to investigate the death of the patient. We had sent a team to the patient’s home to find out exact details. We will submit our report to the civic chief.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
