By Quaid Najmi

Mumbai, May 24 (IANS): Maharashtra saw its Covid-19 tally crossing the 50K mark with the highest single-day infections of 3,041 patients catapulting the number of cases to 50,231, besides 58 deaths, health officials said here on Sunday.

This comes to roughly one death every 25 minutes, and a staggering average 127 new cases recorded every hour in the state.

The state has been recording over 50 fatalities and over 2,000 new patients for the past one week now, with the previous highest figure standing at 2,940 cases on May 22.

With 58 fatalities -- down by 18 from highest 76 notched on May 19 -- the state death toll has touched 1,635.

The Health Department said with the new cases, 33,988 were 'active cases'.

Of the total 58 fatalities, 39 were recorded in Mumbai alone, taking the city deaths up from 949 to 988 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here shot up by 1,725 cases to touch 30,542.

Mumbai's congested Dharavi slum continued to be a major hotspot with 27 new cases on Sunday, taking the total number of infectees to 1,541 and 59 deaths till date. In a new initiative, the civic authorities are experimenting with group 'laughter therapy' for the people of Dharavi in a bid to ease stress and anxiety levels in the crowded slum district, now largely in containment.

Besides Mumbai's 39 deaths, there were six each in Pune and Solapur, four in Aurangabad, two in Thane (Thane City and Mira-Bhayander) and one in Latur.

They comprised 34 men and 24 women, and nearly 67 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.

On the positive side, 1,196 fully cured patients returned home on Sunday, taking the number of those discharged to 14,600.

Addressing the state on Sunday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has warned of cases spiking in the next few days besides hinting at an extension of the lockdown 4.0 and flight restrictions.

Meanwhile, top leaders including Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Thackeray, Congress state President Balasaheb Thorat, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson Nawab Malik and others greeted the Muslim community on Eid on Monday and urged them to celebrate the festival at home amid coronavirus safeguards.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (Thane Division, comprises Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts) continued to cause grave concerns with 1,110 Covid-19 deaths and positive cases shooting to 38,585.

Though trailing a distant second after Mumbai, Pune Division (Pune, Solapur, Satara) fatalities touched 309, besides 6,562 patients.

The next major area of concern is Nashik Division (Nashik, Ahmednagar, Dhule, Jalgaon, Nandurbar) with 103 deaths and 1,570 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division (Aurangabad, Jalna, Hingoli, Parbhani) with 47 fatalities and 1,446 cases, and finally Akola Division (Akola, Amravati, Yavatmal, Buldhana, Washim) with 34 deaths and 733 cases.

There's Latur Division (Latur, Osmanabad, Beed, Nanded) with 8 deaths and 226 cases, Kolhapur Division (Kolhapur, Sangli, Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri) with 5 deaths and 504 patients, and finally Nagpur Division (Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli) with 8 deaths and 556 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased from 485,623 to 499,387 -- a jump of 13,764 -- and those in institutional quarantine went up from 33,545 to 35,107, a spurt of 1,562.

The state's containment zones came down from 2,345 to 2,283 on Sunday and 16,913 health teams have carried out a survey of a population of around 66.6 lakhs in the state.