Mumbai, Aug 22 (IANS): For the second time in 48 hours, Maharashtra equalled its own record of 14,492 new coronavirus cases, though the daily death toll plummeted below the 300-mark for the first time in a week, health officials said here on Saturday.

With 14,492 new cases, the state's total tally shot up to 671,942. As 297 more COVID-19 patients succumbed to the disease, the state's death toll shot up to 21,995. Both figures are the highest in the country.

There was one death roughly every 5 minutes and a staggering 604 new cases added every hour to the state's corona tally, though the load of deaths is gradually shifting to non-metro areas.

The state's recovery rate dipped slightly from 71.62 per cent to 71.45 per cent, while the mortality rate was 3.27 per cent on Saturday.

Against this, 9,241 fully recovered patients returned home, taking the total discharges to 480,114 till date, considerably higher than the 169,516 active cases in Maharashtra.

Pune continued to lead the fatalities chart, with 76 more deaths, followed by 32 in Mumbai, 24 in Thane, and 22 in Ahmednagar.

Besides, there were 19 more deaths in Nagpur, 13 in Sangli, 12 in Nashik, 10 each in Palghar and Raigad.

There were 8 fatalities each in Kolhapur and Amravati, 7 each in Latur and Osmanabad, 6 each in Jalgaon and Satara, 5 each in Dhule, Solapur and Ratnagiri, 4 each in Beed and Nanded, 3 in Aurangabad, 2 each in Nandurbar, Jalna and Hingoli, 1 each in Akola, Buldhana, Wardha, Bhandara, and Chandrapur.

Dropping below the 50-range for the last nine days, 32 more fatalities took Mumbai's death toll to 7,388. Corona cases spiked by 1,134 to touch 135,362.

Of the total 8 circles, the MMR (Thane circle, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, and Raigad) remains on the edge as deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the fatalities going up from 12,081 deaths a day earlier to 12,157.

Similarly, with 3,340 new cases, the total cases in MMR shot up to 306,338.

Pune district has recorded 147,671 cases till date, with fatalities increasing from 3,498 a day earlier to 3,674.

Thane district in the third spot (after Pune and Mumbai) has witnessed 121,630 corona cases. Its death toll increased from 3,513 the previous day to 3,537.

With 87 more fatalities, Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased from 4,547 to 4,634. The cases tally zoomed up by 4,038 to reach 173,490.

Nashik circle has recorded 1,936 fatalities and 76,691 corona cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 885 deaths and 29,809 cases, and Aurangabad circle with 800 fatalities and 27,551 cases.

Next is Latur circle with 581 fatalities and 20,287 cases, Nagpur circle with 528 deaths and 22,996 cases, followed by Akola division's 410 fatalities and 14,167 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent in home quarantine increased significantly from 11,92,685 to 12,11,608, while those in institutional quarantine went up from 35,132 to 35,371 on Saturday.