Mumbai, Oct 2 (IANS): Covid-19 deaths and cases continued to cause concern as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region toll crossed the 16K mark - higher than all states barring Maharashtra - while Mumbai city fatalities surpassed 9K-level, health officials said here on Friday.

The state witnessed 424 deaths on Friday, lower than the peak of 515 (Sep. 15), and the death toll zoomed from 37,056 to 37,480 now.

The state recorded 15,591 new patients - though lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 (Sep. 11) - pushing up the state total from 14,00,922 to 14,16,513 cases till date.

In a relief, the state recovery rate also shot up for the third day - from 78.84 per cent to 78.91 per cent - while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.65 per cent on Friday.

Against this, 13,294 fully recovered patients returned home taking up the total number of discharged patients from 11,04,426 to 11,17,720 till date – much higher than the 260,876 'active cases' (ill) currently in the state.

As per the figures on Friday, there was one death roughly every 3.39 minutes and 650 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 424 deaths, Raigad led the state with a staggering 90 fatalities, 46 in Pune, 42 each in Mumbai and Satara, 29 in Nagpur, 24 in Nashik, 20 each in Solapur and Sangli, 19 in Thane and 10 in Palghar - in the higher bracket.

There were 8 fatalities in Osmanabad, 7 each in Kolhapur and Bhandara, 6 in Latur, 5 each in Jalgaon, Aurangabad and Yavatmal, 4 each in Ahmednagar, Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Beed and Chandrapur, 3 each in Hingoli, Nanded and Wardha, 2 each in Dhule and Gondia, 1 each in Nandurbar, Parbhani, Akola and Buldhana, besides 2 from other states or foreigners - in the lower bracket.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the second day this month, Mumbai recorded 42 fatalities, and the city toll crossed the 9K-mark, shooting up from 8,972 to 9,014 while the number of corona cases shot up by 2,440 and the city total zoomed fromA207,620 to 210,060 now.

Of the total 8 Circles, the situation in Mumbai circle (MMR - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the edge as deaths spiral and cases pile up.

The MMR fatalities surpassed the 16K-level, shooting up by 161 - taking up the toll from 15,949 to 16,110 and with another spike of 4,937 new infectees, the total cases shot up from 486,064 the previous day to 491,001 now.

With another 108 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased from 7,980 to 8,088 and the daily case tally zoomed up by 3,649 - from 369,779 a day earlier to 373,428 cases now.

Nashik circle recorded 3,748 fatalities and 188,557 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 2,957 deaths and 96,007 cases, and Nagpur circle recorded 2,549 deaths and 111,497 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1,573 deaths and 57,855 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,353 fatalities and 53,356 cases, followed by Akola circle with 958 deaths and 3,171 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine for Corona increased - from 21,74,651 to 21,94,347 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went up from 28,720 to 29,051 on Friday.