By Quaid Najmi

Mumbai, Jun 11 (IANS): For the second consecutive day, Maharashtra recorded new highs on the Covid-19 dashboard -- 152 deaths and 3,607 cases -- with the highest 97 fatalities for the second day running in Mumbai, health officials said here on Thursday.

The state's death toll of 152 marks an increase of 3 over the previous high of 149 notched on June 10, with the month proving to be a nightmare with 3-digit death figures being notched almost daily.

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), 120 (June 9), 149 (June 10), and 152 on Thursday.

This comes to roughly one death every 9 minutes, and a whopping 150 new cases notched every hour in the state on Thursday.

Maharashtra has been recording 100-plus fatalities and new patients over 2K daily for the past 11 days.

With 152 fatalities, the state's death toll has zoomed to 3,590 while the total number of Coronavirus patients increased from Wednesday's 94,041 to climb to 97,648 on Thursday.

The health department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 47,968 are active cases, increasing by 1,894 over Wednesday's 46,074.

Despite the gloomy data on the growing number of Covid-19 deaths and cases, the state continues to record a stunning recovery rate, standing today at 47.02 per cent and a mortality (death) rate 3.07 per cent.

Of the total 152 fatalities on Thursday, 97 deaths were recorded in Mumbai alone for the second day -- taking the city death toll up from Wednesday's 1,857 to 1,954 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here went up by 1,418 cases to touch 54,085.

Besides Mumbai's 97 deaths, there were 20 fatalities in Thane (Mira-Bhayander, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali), 8 each in Pune and Solapur, 6 in Aurangabad, 5 in Nashik, 2 each in Palghar and Latur, and one each in Ratnagiri, Hingoli, Jalna and Nanded.

The victims comprised 102 men -- shooting above the 100-mark for the first time -- and 50 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 1,561 fully cured patients returned home on Thursday, taking the number of those discharged to 46,078.

Health Minister Rajesh Tope announced on Thursday that an additional 500 ICU beds will be made available at the Seven Hills and St. George hospitals in Mumbai within a week.

As the city continues to grapple with Covid-19, between 200 and 300 doctors from rural areas of the state will be brought to the city to help cope with the patients' rush.

In a video-conference with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Tope urged the Centre to relax the stringent norms governing the containment zones from 28 days to 14 days to give relief to the police force.

Maharashtra now has 95 labs for Covid-19 tests, including 41 in the private sector, while the number of tests conducted till date is 609,317, of which 16 per cent have returned positive.

The MMR continued to cause huge worries with the second highest 199 new Covid-19 deaths, down by 3 over Wednesday, pulling up the toll to 2,457, and taking the number of positive cases to 73,242 on Thursday -- the highest in the country.

Though trailing a distant third after MMR, Pune Division fatalities touched 594, besides 13,161 patients.

Since June 1, Thane district with 15,679 cases and 398 fatalities has zoomed past Pune district.

The next major region of concern is Nashik Division with 258 deaths and 3,722 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 133 fatalities and 2,835 cases, and finally Akola Division with 67 deaths and 1,530 cases.

There's Latur Division with 20 deaths and 544 cases, Kolhapur Division with 27 deaths and 1,396 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 14 deaths and 1,138 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased from Wednesday's 569,145 to 573,606 on Thursday, while those in institutional quarantine went up by 838 to 28,066 now.

In another relieving news for patients, there are as many as 75,493 beds currently available for Covid-19 quarantine in the state.