With 5,000-plus active cases, Amravati in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra has now turned into a Covid-19 hotspot. Only the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune and Nagpur have more active cases than Amravati.
Amravati, which is also the headquarters of the Amravati division, is Vidarbha's second important city after Nagpur, the winter capital of the state.
Till Wednesday morning, Amravati had 5,595 active cases as against Pune and Nagpur, which had 9,399 and 6,382 cases, respectively.
As regards Mumbai, it has 6,199 active cases while the MMR, which comprises the twin districts of Mumbai City and Mumbai suburban and large parts of neighbouring Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts, has over 13,000 active cases.
Spread over 12,235 sq km, the Amravati district has a population of nearly 28 lakh.
Over the last two weeks, the Amravati district is adding 600 to 800 cases on an average daily – rattling the government and health administration.
The progressive total cases in Amravati are 32,045 and deaths 443.
As of now, Amravati is under a one-week lockdown, which would end on Monday.
The four main reasons are – lowering of guard by people as the overall situation in India improved, spurt in political functions and mid-January gram panchayat elections, marriages with no respect for protocols and SOPs and the administration that has been on toes for a year also got exhausted.
State’s Women and Child Development Minister Yashomati Thakur, who is the Guardian Minister of Amravati district, admits that people have been careless. “As compared to Mumbai, the population of Amravati is less but the active cases are nearly the same...there has been some carelessness on the part of people as well,” she said, adding that facemasks are compulsory and there cannot be doubts over it. “People have to wear masks and this lockdown is necessary as there are no other options,” the senior Congress leader said.
Former minister and BJP leader Dr Sunil Deshmukh said that it is the sum total of different reasons that have resulted in the situation. “There have been several marriage events which attracted large gatherings. You definitely cannot blame the administration, they have been on their toes for a year,” he said, adding that "people need to understand that we are facing a pandemic".
Amravati-based journalist and writer Avinash Dudhe said that if one takes the Amravati district as a whole, the majority of cases are from Amravati and Achalpur towns. “The surge is mainly from two places...in Amravati, there have been several marriage events in February, while Achalpur is densely populated. In Achalpur, there have been cases where four to five members of a family had been found positive,” he said.