By QUAID NAJMI

Mumbai, Sep 14 (IANS): Three days after crossing the one-million-mark, Maharashtras Covid-19 cases and fatalities shot past Russia - which stands fourth on the Worldometer dashboard after USA, India and Brazil, health officials said here on Monday.

With 17,066 new cases - considerably lower than the peak of 24,886 (September 11), the state's total zoomed from 10,60,308 to 10,77,374 cases now.

Adding 363 more fatalities, including 106 old deaths that have been reconciled on Monday - much lower than the peak of 495 (September 10) - the death toll increased from 29,531 to 29,894 now.

Maharashtra's case tally (10,77,374) is now higher than Russia's 10,68,320 cases on Monday, ranking fourth on the Worldometer dashboard after USA, India and Brazil, but the state's death toll (29,894), is much higher than Russia's 18,635 fatalities till date.

Simultaneously, Mumbai circle deaths crossed 14,000 and the total cases shot past 4 lakh.

There was one death roughly every 3.96 minutes and a whopping 711 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

The state recovery rate increased after four days of decline - from 69.08 per cent to 70.16 per cent, while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.77 per cent on Monday.

Against this, a record high of 15,789 fully recovered patients returned home, taking the total number of discharged patients from 740,061 to 7,55,850 till date - much higher than the 291,256 active cases currently in the state.

Restricted in the sub-50 range for the past 34 days, with 31 fatalities, Mumbai's death toll increased from 8,150 to 8.181 and the number of corona cases shot up by 2,269 to jump from 169,741 to 172,010 now.

Of the total 8 circles, the Mumbai circle (MMR - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the brink as deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the fatalities shooting up by 73 - from 13,951 a day earlier to 14,130 and with another spike of 5,280 new infectees, the total cases shot up from 398,938 the previous day to 404,218 now.

Pune district Covid cases touched 235,419 till date with the fatalities increasing from 4,813 a day earlier to 4,838 now.

Thane district is at the third spot and witnessed 158,908 cases and the death toll increased from 4,162 the previous day to 4,301 now.

With another 44 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased from 6,364 to 6,408 and the case tally zoomed up by 3,639 - from 284,350 a day earlier to 287,989 now.

Nashik circle recorded 2,923 fatalities and 138,742 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 1,962 deaths and 67,735 cases, and Nagpur circle recorded 1,523 deaths and 67,538 cases.

Aurangabad circle had 1,108 fatalities and 42,192 cases, Latur circle recorded 1,096 fatalities and 40,320 cases, followed by Akola division with 642 deaths and 27,537 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased significantly, jumping from 16,83,770 to 17,12,160 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 37,294 to 37,198 on Monday.