Anecdotal evidence suggests a coronavirus variant more infectious but less virulent is circulating in Maharashtra, a top state medical adviser said on Monday as India’s count of active patients increased to over 521,000, past the midpoint of the previous peak in September.

Shashank Joshi, a senior Mumbai-based physician and member of the state’s Covid-19 task force said Maharashtra may need to consider a lockdown if hospitals continue to fill up with patients.

Maharashtra accounted for about 325,000 (62 per cent) of India’s 521,808 Covid-19 patients under medical supervision on Monday with daily new cases in the state over the seven days exceeding the daily counts during the peak of its first wave in mid-September.

The seven-day average of daily new cases in Maharashtra has increased over 5-fold over the past month — from around 6,400 on March 1 to 33,400 on March 28. The state detected 40,414 new cases on Sunday, or nearly 60 per cent of India’s count of 68,020 new cases.

“We’re seeing an exponential rise in cases. Hospital beds are filling up fast — private hospitals are already close to approaching or at peak capacity, but we still have beds in public hospitals,” said Joshi.

The state has around 30,000 oxygen-supported beds, nearly 11,900 intensive care unit beds, and 6,100 ventilators reserved for Covid-19 patients. In line with observations during the previous wave, 80 to 90 per cent of patients recover at home and do not require hospital care.

“We’re seeing fast recovery and a low case fatality rate — it is possible that this is a variant that is more infectious and possibly less virulent,” Joshi said, citing observations such as more household members of a case becoming infected now than during the earlier wave.

Joshi said the state is seeking to collaborate with the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi, to accelerate work to determine what variants are circulating in the state and contributing to the current resurgence.

State authorities have increased testing and contact tracing and are trying to curb the risk of infection spread from cases under home isolation but health experts are worried at the speed at which the cases are rising in the state.

Joshi said a lockdown has been discussed as an option if the epidemic begins to overwhelm the state’s hospital infrastructure. A decision would depend on how fast cases rise in the coming days, he said.