Mumbai, May 8 (IANS): Exactly 14 months after Maharashtra got its first two Covid-19 cases (March 9, 2020), the states overall case tally on Saturday crossed the 5 million-mark while fatalities shot past the 75,000-level, although the situation in Mumbai remained positive, health officials said here.
Compared to 898 deaths reported on Friday, the state's fatalities went down to 864 on Saturday, taking the state's overall death toll to 75,277, the worst in the country.
The state on Saturday reported 53,605 new cases, much lower than the record high of 68,631 cases recorded on April 18, mounting the state's overall tally past the 50 lakh-mark to 50,53,336.
The situation in Mumbai continued to be encouraging, with new infections remaining much below the 5,000-level at 2,664, taking the city's overall tally to 673,235 till date.
Mumbai's daily deaths went down from 71 on Friday to 62 Saturday, as the total number of fatalities in the country's commercial capital shot up to 13,713.
For the seventh straight day, the state's fatality rate remained stable at 1.49 per cent, while the number of active cases stood at 628,213.
On the brighter side, 82,266 fully cured patients returned home on Saturday, the highest in a single day this month, taking the total number of recoveries in the state to 43,47,592. Maharashtra's recovery rate increased from 85.36 per cent a day before to 86.03 per cent now.
The Mumbai Circle, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts, recorded a drop in new cases from 8,335 on Friday to 7,541 now, taking its overall tally to 14,39,919, while 129 deaths mounted its death toll to 24,574 till date.
Of the day's 864 total fatalities due to the contagion, Aurangabad led the chart with 96 deaths, followed by 81 in Nashik, 66 in Nagpur, 62 in Mumbai, 47 in Ahmednagar, 45 in Solapur, 38 in Thane, 34 in Satara, 33 in Nandurbar, 28 each in Raigad and Yavatmal, 26 in Osmanabad, 25 in Kolhapur, 24 in Sangli, 21 each in Parbhani and Nanded, 20 each in Beed and Amravati, 19 each in Pune and Chandrapur, 17 in Wardha, 15 in Jalgaon, 13 in Washim, 12 in Ratnagiri, and 10 each in Latur and Akola -- in the higher range.
There were 8 deaths in Jalna, 7 in Dhule, 6 in Gadchiroli, 4 each in Sindhudurg and Gondia, 2 each in Hingoli and Bhandara, and 1 in Palghar -- in the lower range.
Out of the 36 districts in the state, only Buldhana reported zero fatalities on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation decreased from 38,41,431 a day before to 37,50,502 now, while those shunted to institutional quarantine went down from 28,860 on Friday to 28,453 on Saturday.