By Quaid Najmi

Mumbai, May 19 (IANS): Maharashtra on Monday recorded its second highest surge of 2,033 Covid-19 cases - after Monday's 2,347 - and notched 51 deaths on the first day of lockdown 4.0, officials said here.

This comes to a staggering surge of around 85 new cases every hour and a death rate of roughly two fatalities every hour in the state.

With 51 fatalities - down from the previous high of 63 notched on May 17 -- the state death toll now stands at 1,249 and the total number of coronavirus patients increased from 33,053 to 35,058 on Monday, after the previous steepest single-day jump of 2,347 recorded on Sunday.

The Health Department said of the total number of cases, 25,392 were active cases, up by 1,231 over Sunday's figures.

Of the total deaths, 23 were recorded in Mumbai alone, besides one from Bihar, while the city's toll increased from Sunday's 734 to 757, and the number of Covid-19 positive patients here shot up by 1,185 cases to touch 22,335.

Mumbai's Dharavi slum alone continued to be a major hotspot and a headache for the health authorities, notching 85 new cases, taking the total number of patients to 1,327, and 56 deaths to date.

Besides Mumbai's 23 deaths, there were 9 in Thane (Navi Mumbai-Bhiwandi), eight in Pune, three in Jalgaon, two each in Aurangabad, Ahmednagar and Nagpur, and one in Palghar.

They comprised 35 men and 16 women, and nearly 68 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.

In a setback, Gadchiroli district which was in the green zone, suddenly moved into the orange zone with the detection of 5 infected persons.

According to officials, they had reportedly gone from Mumbai to Gadchiroli and were in quarantine when their test reports came as Covid-19 positive.

On the positive side, the highest number of 749 fully cured patients returned home on Monday, taking the number of those discharged to 8,437.

Sounding relief for the state police, around 10 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached the state, including five for Mumbai and the rest for Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik, Amravati, said Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.

The state had last week had sought 20 companies of CAPF to give the state police some rest and also to ensure there are no law and order problems during the upcoming Eid festival next week.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (Thane Division) continued to cause huge concerns with 844 Covid-19 deaths and cases shooting to 26,646, with Thane district notching 57 deaths, Palghar 14 and Raigad 16 fatalities so far.

Though trailing a distant second after Mumbai, Pune Division fatalities touched 232, besides 4,640 patients.

The next major area of concern is Nashik Division with 83 deaths and 1,341 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 34 fatalities and 1,121 cases, and finally Akola Division with 29 deaths and 522 cases.

There's also Latur Division with 6 deaths and 142 cases, Kolhapur Division with 5 deaths and 216 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 5 deaths and 387 patients.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased from 348,508 to 366,242, and those in institutional quarantine went up from 17,638 to 18,678, while the state's containment zones decreased from 1,688 on Sunday to 1,681 on Monday.

As many as 14,041 teams have carried out a survey of a population of around 60.4 lakhs in the state to date as the state started into Lockdown 4.0 till May 31.