Mumbai, Nov 5 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 cases crossed the 17 lakh-mark even as deaths remained high for the second day despite a fall in new infections and an improved recovery rate, health officials said here on Thursday.

The state witnessed 256 deaths (including 139 reconciled old fatalities), almost half the peak tally of 515 recorded on September 15, taking Maharashtra's Covid death toll to 44,804.

The state recorded 5,246 fresh cases - much lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 recorded on September 11 - as the state's tally jumped past the 17 lakh-mark to 17,03,444 cases till date.

On a positive side, the state's recovery rate increased from 90.68 per cent to 91.07 per cent, while the current mortality rate stood at 2.63 per cent.

Simultaneously, another lot of 11,277 fully recovered patients returned home, nearly double the fresh infections for the day, taking the total number of recoveries to 15,51,282 till date, much higher than the 106,519 active cases currently present in the state.

Of the 256 deaths declared on Thursday (including the 139 old fatalities), Sangli led the count with 51 deaths, followed by 43 in Solapur, 41 in Kolhapur, 26 in Nanded, 25 in Mumbai, 18 in Thane, 12 in Pune, 9 in Beed, 5 in Nashik, 4 each in Ahmednagar and Satara, 3 each in Palghar and Aurangabad, 2 each in Buldhana, Nagpur and Chandrapur, and 1 each in Dhule, Jalgaon, Jalna, Parbhani, Latur and Osmanabad.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the fourth day this month, Mumbai recorded a low of 25 fatalities, as the city's toll climbed to 10,377, while the number of corona infections went up by 841 to 261,681.

Of the total 8 circles, Mumbai circle's (MMR, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) fatalities shot up by 46 to 17,923, and with another spike of 1,693 new infectees, the total number of cases zoomed to 591,457.

With another 30 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed to 9,936, while 1,051 new cases took its tally to 430,560.

Nashik circle has so far recorded 4,326 deaths and 228,687 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,821 fatalities and 109,970 cases, and Nagpur circle's 3,654 deaths and 152,850 cases.

Latur circle has till date recorded 2,117 fatalities and 70,204 cases, Aurangabad circle 1,594 fatalities and 63,858 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,282 deaths and 53,646 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine fell from 13,35,681 to 12,52,758 now, while the number of those in institutional quarantine went up from 11,648 to 12,003 on Thursday.

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