Mumbai, Aug 24 (IANS): After a record 14,492 new coronavirus cases on August 22, the number of new patients and deaths continued to fall in Maharashtra for the second consecutive day even as the state notched a total of over half a million recoveries, health officials said here on Monday.

With 11,015 new cases, the state total shot up to 693,398. As many as 212 more fatalities, lowest in a month, took the western state's death toll to 22,465. Both figures are the highest in the country.

There was one death roughly every 7 minutes and 459 new cases added every hour to the state's tally, with the load of deaths gradually shifting to non-metro areas.

The state's recovery rate increased from 71.55 per cent to 72.47 per cent, while the mortality rate stood at 3.24 per cent on Monday.

A record 14,219 recovered patients returned home, taking the total to 502,490 till date - considerably higher than the 168,126 'active cases' in the state.

Thane took the lead on Monday with a death toll of 33 deaths, followed by Pune's 24 and Mumbai's only 20 -- the lowest in several months -- in the higher bracket.

Besides, there were 18 fatalities each in Jalgaon and Nagpur, 10 each in Solapur and Satara, in the middle range.

On the lower side, there were 9 deaths in Ahmednagar, 7 each in Nashik, Kolhapur, Sangli, Latur and Beed, 6 each in Dhule and Aurangabad, 5 in Raigad, 4 in Nanded, 2 each in Palghar, Ratnagiri and Gondia, 1 each in Jalna, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Washim, Bhandara and Chandrapur.

Remaining below the 50-range for the 11th day with 20 fatalities, Mumbai's death toll increased to 7,442 as the number of new cases increased by 743 to 137,096.

Of the total 8 circles, the MMR (Thane circle, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remained on the edge as deaths spiralled and cases piled up, with the fatalities shooting up by 60 death to 12,279. With 2,058 new infectees, the total cases shot up to 311,066.

Pune district's total cases touched 152,511 even as fatalities increased from 3,741 a day earlier to 3,765.

Thane district on the third spot (after Pune and Mumbai) has recorded 123,499 cases with its death toll increasing from 3,560 the previous day to 3,593.

With 44 more fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased to 4,758 while the cases tally zoomed by 3,117 to 179,712.

Nashik circle crossed the 2K mark by recording 2,008 fatalities and 80,879 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 928 deaths and 31,942 cases, and Aurangabad circle with 819 fatalities and 28,290 cases.

Next came Latur circle with 619 fatalities and 21,353 cases, Nagpur circle with 574 deaths and 24,728 cases, and Akola division with 414 fatalities and 14,775 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent in home quarantine increased considerably -- from 12,30,982 to 12,44,024 -- while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 34,820 to 33,922 on Monday.