Why cases spiked in 15 Maharashtra districts after the lockdown

While the lockdown has helped contain the second wave of Covid-19 infections in most parts of Maharashtra -- including the state’s big cities Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur – the shut-down in fifteen districts has failed to have the desired effect.In fact, cases in these districts have grown manifold during the lockdown, setting off alarm bells in the state capital. In at least three districts cases went up by 300 to 400 per cent during the lockdown compared to the pre-lockdown period.At a meeting with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, senior officials from the 15 districts said the spike was caused by people’s refusal to follow lockdown norms in rural and semi-urban areas. The officials also reported mass spreaders like weddings and birthday parties contributing to the rapid rise in cases.The officials pointed out that home isolation in smaller towns and villages has not worked. In many cases, entire families tested positive after a family member was isolated at home.Some of the worst affected districts are: Buldhana, where the cases have increased 406.31 % during the lockdown, Kolhapur where the cases went up up by 387.46 %, Ratnagiri 301.83 %, Sangli 168.58 %, Yavatmal 144.60 % and Amravati with 110.89 %. (See chart for all 15 districts). !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r At the meeting - which had in attendance Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Health Minister Rajesh Tope, Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte, and Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) head Dr TP Lahane - district collectors were instructed to discourage home isolation and build Covid centres in villages and small towns. It was also decided to scale up existing Covid centres.Instructions have been issued to not allow more than 25 people at a wedding. District police chiefs have been asked to book family elders if a wedding ceremony flouts the rule. Gram Panchayats have now been allowed to spend 25 per cent of the funds received as grants under the 15th Finance Commission to tackle Covid.Dr Lahane said district collectors have been directed to increase testing and contact tracing and have been asked to make sure 70 per cent of daily tests are processed through RT-PCR. “We have ample stock of antigen rapid test kits and RT PCR kits. The districts administrations have been asked to send their samples to Mumbai if the local labs have a backlog,” he said.A review of all 15 districts has been scheduled next week, said Dr Lahane. He said there is no indication of a variant at play in these districts. “Though that is always a possibility, we have not seen any evidence pointing in that direction. It’s just that execution of lockdown has been very poor in these districts.”