Maharashtra on Monday, 3 January, notched a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and of its variant Omicron with Mumbai continuing to bear the maximum caseload, health officials said.

The state COVID-19 count shot up again from 11,877 on Sunday, 2 January, to 12,160 now, and fatalities also increased from nine a day earlier to 11, while the mortality rate remained steady at 2.01 per cent.

Of the Omicron cases, 40 are from Mumbai, 17 from Pune, four each in Raigad and Nagpur, and one each from Thane, Kolhapur, and Satara.

Intensive surveillance of passengers arriving at the three international airports - Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur - is currently underway since 1 December.

Besides, another 2,375 samples from field surveys conducted since 1 November have been sent for genomic sequencing with the results of 166 awaited, the officials said.

Omicron has spread extensively spanning several districts in the state, with a whopping 578 cases recorded so far.

Mumbai accounts for the maximum 368 cases, followed by 125 in Pune, 33 in Thane, 12 in Raigad, 10 in Nagpur, seven in Satara, five in Osmanabad, four in Palghar, three in Nanded, two each in Buldhana, Aurangabad, Sangli, and Kolhapur, and one each in Akola, Latur, and Ahmednagar.

The number of people sent to home quarantine has catapulted from 243,250 on Sunday, 2 January, to 332,610 and another 1,096 have been shunted to institutional quarantine.

The state's cumulative figures of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic stands at 67,12,028 cases and 1,41,553 deaths, while 65,14,358 patients who have fully recovered.

(This story was published from a syndicated feed. Only the headline and picture has been edited by FIT.)