Mumbai, Apr 24 (IANS): The Covid death toll in Maharashtra zoomed to a new high on Friday with 773 persons succumbing to the virus, while the state's caseload breached the 41 lakh mark though the active case tally witnessed a marginal decline, health officials said.

The state's single-day death toll scaled a new peak of 773 -- up from the previous high of 568 notched on April 21/22 -- taking its overall fatality numbers to 63,252, the worst in the country.

Dropping a little from the record high of 68,631 new cases in a day recorded on April 18, the state on Friday reported 66,836 new cases, taking its overall tally to 41,61,676.

The situation in Mumbai improved marginally with a drop in new infections, from 7,367 on Thursday to 7,199 on Friday, as the city's overall tally shot up to 616,279, 19 days after touching the highest daily spike of 11,206 cases on April 4.

With the addition of 72 fatalities on Friday, the city's overall death toll mounted to 12,655, the highest for a single city in the country.

On a brighter note, 74,045 fully cured persons, the highest so far, returned home on Friday, taking the state's total number of recoveries to 34,04,792, while the recovery rate improved from 81.34 percent on Thursday to 81.81 percent now.

The death rate again dropped from 1.53 percent a day earlier to 1.52 percent now, while the number of active cases in the state decreased for the first time this month, from 699,858 to 691,851 now.

The Mumbai Circle -- comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts -- recorded a fall in new cases from 17,195 on Thursday to 16,968 now, taking its overall tally to 12,86,497, while 180 fatalities on Friday mounted its death toll to 22,364.

Of the day's 773 total fatalities, Mumbai led the chart with 72 deaths, followed by 70 in Yavatmal, 58 in Nagpur, 57 in Solapur, 56 in Thane, 52 in Nanded, 41 in Nashik, 37 in Satara, 36 in Raigad, 31 in Ahmednagar, 30 each in Pune and Latur, 20 each in Osmanabad and Gondia, 17 in Wardha, 16 each in Palghar and Beed, 14 in Sindhudurg, 13 in Jalgaon, 11 each in Sangli, Ratnagiri and Bhandara, and 10 in Akola -- on the higher range.

Amravati and Gadchiroli reported 8 deaths each, followed by 7 in Nandurbar, 6 in Aurangabad, 5 in Parbhani, 4 in Chandrapur, 3 in Washim, 1 each in Dhule, Buldhana, besides 1 outsider -- on the lower range.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation increased -- from 39,71,917 to 41,88,266 now -- while those shunted to institutional quarantine went up from 29,014 to 29,378 on Friday.