Mumbai, Jul 3 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 cases continued to break records with a new high of 6,364 - up from Thursday's 6,330, and notched 198 deaths for the second time in three days, health officials said here on Friday.

With the latest fatalities, the state death toll climbed up to 8,376 and total cases zoomed to 192,990 - both the highest in the country.

Friday's figures work out to roughly one death recorded every 7 minutes and a staggering 265 new cases notched every hour.

The recovery rate in the state improved marginally from to 54.24 per cent while the mortality rate stood at 4.34 percent.

July has started with three-digit highs of deaths and over 5,000 cases daily, causing major concerns among health officials.

The Health Department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 79,911 are active case.

On the positive side, 3,515 fully cured patients returned home on Friday - taking the number of those discharged to 104,687.

Of Friday's fatalities, Mumbai alone notched 73 deaths - pulling up the city death toll to 4,762, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here shot up by 1,338 cases to 82,074.

There were also 50 deaths in Thane, 19 in Pune, 15 in Solapur, six each in Palghar, Aurangabad and Jalgaon, five in Jalna, four in Raigad, three in Akola, two each in Dhule and Amravati, and one each in Nashik, Ahmednagar, Nandurbar, Latur and Gondiya. Two deceased were from other states.

The MMR (Thane division) continues to see deaths and cases continue to pile up, with a total of 6,060 Covid-19 fatalities and a whopping 4,379 new patients pushing up the number of positive cases to 137,783.

Thane cases have shot upto 43,634 with 1,075 fatalities - to emerge as the second worst-hit district after Mumbai in the state.

Pune district comes third with 25,454 patients and 826 deaths till now. But Pune division ranks second (after MMR) with 29,371 patients and 1,157 fatalities.

Nashik division has 566 fatalities and 10,379 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad division with 306 deaths and 7,060 cases, and Akola division with 139 fatalities and 2,934 cases.

Kolhapur division has notched 55 deaths and 2,173 patients, Latur division 49 fatalities and 1,134 cases, and Nagpur division has recorded 19 deaths and 2,050 cases.

Among the eight divisions, only Kolhapur recorded zero fatalities on Friday, though there were new Covid-19 positive cases.

Nashik division, meanwhile, the third division to enter the 5-digit levels in the total cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 589,448, while those in institutional quarantine increased to 42,371.