MUMBAI : It was on March 17 that Maharashtra notched the first Covid-19 death of a 64-year old man who died at the Kasturba Hospital in Mumbai, sounding the first alarm for the state health authorities.
Exactly 60 days later, the state death toll has zoomed from 1 to 1,135 -- or a rough average of 19 deaths per day. In Mumbai, since the first death, the figure of fatalities has touched 696 -- or an average of around 11 deaths per day.
In terms of the spread, the state has shot up from only 2 cases on March 9 to 30,706 today -- a staggering average of 438 cases per day in the past 70 days.
Barely 72 hours before the first death (on March 17), the state had invoked the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 (March 13) and the next day framed 'The