Mumbai, May 31 (IANS): The Mumbai region Covid-19 cases shot above the 51,000-mark on Sunday even as the state death toll reached 2,286, with 89 fatalities - down by 27 from the highest 116 deaths recorded on May 29 - health officials said.

Sunday's toll includes a whopping 70 deaths in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region alone - the worst-hit in the country, besides 2,487 new positive cases recorded in the state.

This comes to roughly one death every 16 minutes, and an average 104 new cases notched every hour, in the state.

Maharashtra has been recording 75-plus fatalities and new patients over 2,000 daily for the past six consecutive days, with the last highest figure of 3,041 infections on May 24.

With 89 fatalities, the state death toll has touched 2,286 while the total number of Coronavirus patients increased from Saturday's 65,168 to 67,655 on Sunday.

The health department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 36,031 were active, an increase of 1,150 over Saturday's 34,881.

The state has notched a recovery rate of 43.35 per cent and a mortality (death) rate of 3.37 per cent, with the patient doubling time improving to 17.5 days over last week's 11.3 days, against the national average of 15.7 days.

Of the total 89 fatalities on Sunday, 52 were recorded in Mumbai alone, taking the city deaths up from Saturday's 1,227 to 1,279 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here shot up by 1,244 cases to touch 39,686 now.

Besides Mumbai's 52 deaths, there were 18 fatalities in Thane (Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali), 9 in Pune, 6 in Nashik (Malegaon), 2 Solapur, and one each in Osmanabad and Yavatmal.

The victims comprised 46 men and 43 women, and nearly 63 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.

On the positive side, a total of 1,248 fully cured patients returned home on Sunday, taking the number of those discharged from 28,081 to 29,329.

Maharashtra announced a gradual easing of the lockdown from June 1 under #MissionBeginAgain, with specified activities permitted in phases, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said in an address to the state on Sunday.

Spelling out cheers for Bollywood, film shootings of all types have been permitted with a set of guidelines, while doorstep delivery of newspapers will also start shortly.

The MMR continued to cause grave concerns with 1,548 Covid-19 deaths and positive cases shooting past the 50K mark to touch 51,397.

Though trailing a distant second after Mumbai, Pune Division fatalities touched 415, besides 9,339 patients.

The next major area of concern is Nashik Division with 163 deaths and 2,046 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 66 fatalities and 1,838 cases, and finally Akola Division with 48 deaths and 1,010 cases.

There's Latur Division with 10 deaths and 356 cases, Kolhapur Division with 10 deaths and 866 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 11 deaths and 744 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased from Saturday's 551,660 to 558,100 on Sunday, and those in institutional quarantine decreased by 940 to 34,480.

In yet another relieving news, there are as many as 72,704 beds available for quarantine in the state.

The state's containment zones decreased from 3,169 to 3,157 on Sunday and 18,490 health teams have carried out a survey of a population of around 70.1 lakhs in the state.