By Quaid Najmi

Mumbai, Jun 10 (IANS): Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded new highs on the Covid-19 dashboard - 149 deaths and 3,254 cases - with the highest 97 fatalities in Mumbai and the Maoist-infested Gadchiroli notching its first death, health officials said here.

The state's death toll of 149 marks an increase of 10 over the previous high of 139 notched on June 5, while 3,254 new Covid-19 cases recorded on Wednesday.

The previous three-digit highs recorded in the state include 103 deaths (June 2), 122 (June 3), 123 (June 4), 139 (June 5) and 120 (June 6), 109 (June 8), and 120 (June 9).

This comes to roughly one death every 9 minutes, and an average 136 new cases notched every hour in the state.

Maharashtra has been recording 100-plus fatalities and over 2,000 new patients daily for the past 10 days, with the previous single-day highest figure of 3,041 infections notched on May 24.

With the latest fatalities, the state death toll has zoomed to 3,438 while the total number of coronavirus patients increased from 90,787 to 94,041.

The health department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 46,074 were active cases - increasing by 1,225.

Despite the gloomy data on the growing number of Covid-19 deaths and cases, the state has recorded a stunning recovery rate of 47.34 per cent and a mortality rate 3.65 per cent.

Of the total fatalities on Wednesday, the highest ever 97 deaths were recorded in Mumbai alone - taking the city death toll up to 1,857 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here went up by 1,567 cases to touch 52,667 now.

There were also 23 fatalities in Thane (Thane, Navi Mumbai, Ulhasnagar), 10 in Pune, 7 in Aurangabad, 5 in Jalgaon, 2 each in Palghar and Akola, and one each in Beed, Amravati and Gadchiroli.

The victims comprised 94 men and 55 women and nearly 70 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.

On the positive side, a total of 1,879 fully cured patients returned home on Wednesday, taking the number of those discharged to 44,517 now.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his cabinet colleagues Anil Parab and Jitendra Awhad have again appealed to the Centre to resume Mumbai's suburban train services to enable personnel to commute for providing essential services in hospitals, civic bodies, etc.

Menwhile, in a tragic incident, the body of an 82-year old Covid-18 woman patient - who had gone 'missing' since June 2, was found in the toilet of Jalgaon Civil Hospital, the second instance in three days after a similar incident was recorded in Mumbai on Monday.

In view of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ongoing lockdown and Cyclone Nisarga fallout, the state government and Opposition parties on Wednesday unanimously decided to postpone the upcoming Monsoon Session of Maharashtra Legislature, scheduled to start from June 22, to August 3.

The MMR (Thane Division) continued to cause grave concerns with the highest ever 122 new Covid-19 deaths, pulling up the toll to 2,338, and taking the positive cases to 70,700 - the highest in the country.

Though trailing MMR distantly, Pune Division fatalities touched 578, besides 12,570 patients.

Since June 1, Thane district - with 14,720 cases and 378 fatalities - has zoomed past Pune district which has 10,406 patients and 439 deaths.

The next major region of concern is Nashik Division with 253 deaths and 3,590 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 125 fatalities and 2,692 cases, and finally Akola Division with 67 deaths and 1,467 cases.

Latur Division has 17 deaths and 524 cases, Kolhapur Division 26 deaths and 1,373 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 14 deaths and the number of cases zipping past the 3-digit figure to touch 1,045.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased to 569,145 on Wednesday, while those in institutional quarantine went down up by 758 to 27,228 now.

There are as many as 75,727 beds currently available for Covid-19 quarantine in the state.

The state's containment zones increased from 3,750 to 3,897 on Wednesday while 18,384 health teams have fanned out around the state to survey a population of around 67.65 lakh till date.