Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said that there would have been one and a half lakh cases in Maharashtra by May end, as per the central team’s prediction, had the state government not taken care of the same.
Thackeray said that if the Maharashtra government had not taken care of the prediction of 1.5 lakh COVID-19 cases by the centre would have come true. Although the numbers have increased, the state is way behind the predicted numbers, he added.
According to a report published in India Today, the Maharashtra Chief Minister admitted that there was a partial community spread in the state. Thackeray said that there was no point lying while stating that his biggest challenge is to face monsoon.
Moreover, Thackeray said that a turnabout in the implementation of the lockdown has caused trouble for the migrant workers and labourers. He said that if migrant workers were allowed to return home before the lockdown was announced, they wouldn’t have faced so much trouble. The Maharashtra Chief Minister, however, said that he didn't want to point fingers at the centre.
“The testing done at international airports in the initial days were faulty,” Thackeray told Marathi daily Loksatta in a webinar interview. Thackeray further said that the first patient in Maharashtra had a travel history to Dubai and the list submitted by the centre initially regarding screening passengers coming from abroad didn’t include the United State of America (USA) and Dubai.
Moreover, the Shiv Sena chief said that screening international travellers only for fever was not enough as everyone take paracetamol whenever they have a fever. Thackeray also highlighted that by the time the state government started sending international passengers into quarantine, they had already mingled with other people.
Meanwhile, Thackeray took taunted the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has been criticising his government for its “ineffective” handling of the COVID-19 crisis in Maharashtra.
Reacting to this, the Chief Minister said that he was checking with the experts whether stomach ache was also a symptom of COVID-19.
Thackeray further clarified that he was not in favour of opening schools on June 15 like every year and the state government was exploring other ideas to provide education such as online classes, classroom on TV.
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