The thick tail of Maharashtra’s second wave
Long after April’s peak, six districts continued to drive the state’s Covid-19 caseload. Ground reports indicate that a confluence of factors led to this
In April 2021 at the peak of Maharashtra’s second wave of Covid-19, cases consistently topped 60,000 a day. While the downward trend began in May, the state’s numbers hovered around 10,000 and 14,000 for the first half of June. It was only in the second half of June that new daily Covid cases in the state began falling. Yet, not all of the state’s 36 districts recorded a decline.
Hindustan Times analysed state government data for 50 days starting June 1 and found that only six districts — Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg — accounted for more than half the cases emerging from the state.
While Mumbai, a Covid-19 hot spot during both the first and second waves, accounted for 6.7% of the overall cases, the remaining 29 districts accounted for 37.68% of the state’s cases. These six districts of concern —as they came to be called — accounted for 55.62% of the total cases.
In absolute numbers, 268,124 out of the 482,027 cases recorded in Maharashtra between June 1 and July 20 came from these six districts.
On July 3, these six districts added the most to Maharashtra’s cases —6,140 of the state’s 9489 cases; that’s 64.71%.
In fact, on 15 of the 50 days analysed, these six districts contributed more than 60% of the state’s total, and it was on just one day (June 3) that the proportion of cases fell below 45%.
Indeed, these six districts are part of the 11 where lockdown restrictions will not be eased since their growth rate has not fallen below the state’s average, the health minister Rajesh Tope announced on July 29.
Kolhapur was the worst affected district and is showing no sign of improvement even while other districts — most notably Mumbai — have shown a consistent decline in cases and test positivity rates (the number of positive cases per 100 tests).
Between June 1 and July 20, Kolhapur recorded 14.96% of the overall state’s cases while Pune clocked 12.52% of the state’s total.
HT travelled across four districts — Kolhapur, Pune, Sangli and Satara — and spoke to officials, public health experts, traders, healthcare and frontline workers and ordinary residents, among others, to understand the issues that were peculiar to these districts of concern.
In Kolhapur, we encountered a potent mix: a large unvaccinated youth populace and a trader community driven to desperation; In Satara, a court-permitted sugar mill election saw large superspreader-like events during campaigning; In Pune, experts pointed to how the rural parts of the district drove the second wave; and in Sangli, an elaborate state machinery came up against testing hesitancy.
Earlier this week, the joint secretary of the Union health ministry Lav Agarwal announced a list of 22 districts in the country where an increasing trend of cases on a week-on-week basis was observed.
Maharashtra’s Solapur and Beed are part of these 22 “areas of concern”. What lessons can the districts learn from each other? Is there a way of easing into some normalcy while in the midst of a pandemic?
Read on and find out.
The predictability of a pandemic
Maharashtra’s districts of concern in Covid fight:
In Sangli, monitoring system vs lockdown fatigue
In Kolhapur, young adults await a jab
In Satara, superspreader events drive up caseload
In Pune, rural areas drove surge