The State Cabinet meeting held on Thursday discussed the possibility of canceling mandatory masks. Some of the cabinet members said that many countries including England have scrapped rules that made masks compulsory.

According to sources, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that the government’s Covid-19 Task Force will conduct a study on this matter. The Task Force will study the decisions on masks taken by various countries and also study the possible impact of the decision.

Thackeray said that no decision will be taken in a hurry and the government will go by the recommendation by the experts in the Task Force. He insisted that the government will have to achieve the target of 100 per cent vaccination in the State. The vaccination process has slowed down in the last few months, according to State Health Minister Rajesh Tope.

Number of cases on the decline

Maharashtra has 2,87,397 active Covid-19 cases as of January 27. However, the daily caseload which was about 40,000 cases daily few days ago has reduced to about 25,000 cases this week. The number of discharged patients ( 36,708) was more than the number of cases detected on Thursday. The number of cases is also declining in Mumbai and other regions.

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