india

Updated: Apr 09, 2020 22:22 IST

The total number of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra touched 1,364 on Thursday with the state reporting 229 new cases, health minister Rajesh Tope said.

Maharashtra, which has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country so far and the most number of deaths, reported 25 more deaths on Thursday, taking the death toll to 97.

In the morning, a health official had said that the number had risen to 1,297 with most of the new cases being detected in the capital city of Mumbai.

This is the highest increase in the number of cases recorded in a single day in the state so far. At the same time, 125 people have recovered and have been discharged from various hospitals in the state, a health ministry official said.

In a new development, the State Reserve Police Force will be deployed in containment zones in Mumbai for strict implementation of the lockdown, the health minister said.

Twenty-one hotspots of Covid-19 have been identified in Mumbai and curfew-like restrictions imposed in all these places to contain the fast-spreading infection, a Maharashtra minister said a day after Uttar Pradesh and Delhi adopted a similar approach.

The stringent restrictions will come into effect immediately and continue till further orders. No one will be allowed to venture out of their houses in these hotspots and essentials will be home-delivered, the state cabinet has decided. Only medicine shops will remain open.