Due to the sudden spike in new Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra, active cases in the state have increased by almost 29 percent in the past one week. Civic officials said the next 15 days will be crucial for Mumbai as the city battles surging coronavirus cases.

Covid-19 cases have increased by 37 percent in Mumbai as the city recorded 823 cases on Friday, the highest single-day spike in infections since December, a report in Hindustan Times said.

The tally of coronavirus cases in the country's financial capital thus rose to 3,17,310, while the death toll reached 11,435 with five new fatalities.

“We are expecting that cases will increase further in the next 15 days. So, the next two weeks will be crucial to ascertain the spike in Covid-19 cases in the city,” Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner, BMC reportedly said.

As per data from the state government, on February 12, Maharashtra had 31,479 active cases, which surged to 43,701 on Thursday.

Mumbai's daily count of infections crossed the 700- mark in the last two days after it had recorded less than 500 cases at the start of the week. As many as 440 patients were discharged from hospitals during the day, taking the count of recoveries to 2,98,435.

“The list of active patients include those who started their treatment prior to February 12, along with the newly added patients who got diagnosed that date,” the state surveillance officer Dr Pradip Awate reportedly said.

Senior health official said that a sudden drop in temperature last week in some parts of Maharashtra may have caused a spike in COVID-19 cases. Non-adherence to outbreak protocol also played a significant role in the case surge.

Preliminary genome sequencing has found two mutated variants of Sars-CoV-2 which is spreading “aggressively” in districts such as Amravati and Yavatmal, officials said.

“The epidemiological characteristics of the new mutated variation of Covid-19 have a faster infection rate. Thus, we are witnessing more infection rate in Amravati and Yavatmal, which have the highest positivity rate in the state,” Dr Subhash Salunke, technical adviser to the Maharashtra government on the Covid-19 outbreak told Hindustan Times.

Medical experts say that many patients from the same families are getting infected but they refuse to cooperate. In many cases, the infected patients have given false addresses which hampers proper action in the cases.