Maharashtra has emerged as India's epicentre as the state coronavirus tally crossed the 37,000-mark on Tuesday. According to data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2,078 new coronavirus cases were reported as of 8 am on May 20 in Maharashtra.
The total number of coronavirus positive cases currently stand at 37,136. Among the total people infected as on date, 9,639 have recovered and 1,325 have died.
Within the country, Maharashtra is the worst-affected state and Mumbai holds the largest share of patients with over 22,700 cases.
On May 20, the total number of coronavirus positive cases reached 1,388 cases. Out of the 1388 cases of coronavirus among Maharashtra Police personnel, 948 are still active.
"The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in Maharashtra Police is now 1388 including 948 active cases, 428 recovered and 12 deaths," said Maharashtra Police.??
While a staggering count of COVID-19 cases is concerning, the missing coronavirus patients are giving nightmares to the city's civic body, which has adopted all possible means to trace them.
This was a common occurrence in cases where people experience mild symptoms of the infection or are asymptomatic and undergo testing in private labs, an official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said.
"When people who get tested don't furnish their correct contact details like address or phone number, we have to go looking for them after they test positive for the infection. Even testing labs make mistakes while entering contact details of the patients," news agency PTI quoted the official as saying.
Once they are found, these patients were admitted to the BMC's COVID-19 facilities, depending on their health condition, asymptomatic or otherwise.
Most of these untraceable patients were from slum- dominated areas, where people have some fears and misconceptions about testing positive, which prompt them to furnish fake details to avoid hospitalisation, the PTI report said.