Mumbai, Oct 5 (IANS): The Mumbai Metropolitan Region crossed the half-million mark of Covid-19 cases but Maharashtra recorded its lowest infections in one week, health officials said here on Monday.

The state witnessed 263 deaths on Monday, down by nearly half from the peak of 515, and the death toll zoomed from 38,084 to 38,347 now.

The state recorded another 10,244 new infections, the lowest since it witnessed 11,921 cases on September 28 - and over 14,000 lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 (September 11) - as the total shot up from 14,43,409 to 14,53,653 cases till date.

In a relief, the state recovery rate also shot up for the third day - from 79.64 per cent to 80.0 per cent - while the current mortality (death) rate remained unchanged at 2.64 per cent.

Against this, 12,982 fully recovered patients returned home taking up the total number of discharged patients from 11,49,603 to 11,62,585 till date - much higher than the 252,277 'active cases' (ill) currently in the state.

As per the figures on Monday, there was one death roughly every 5.47 minutes and 427 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 263 deaths, Mumbai again led with 47 fatalities, 30 in Pune, 25 in Kolhapur, 20 in Nagpur, 17 in Thane, 15 in Satara, 14 in Jalna, 12 in Yavatmal, 11 in Sangli, 10 each in Raigad and Nanded - in the higher bracket.

There were 9 fatalities in Nashik, 6 each in Solapur and Bhandara, 5 each in Palghar, Latur and Amravati, 4 in Ahmednagar, 3 in Beed, 2 each in Jalgaon and Akola, 1 each in Ratnagiri, Hingoli, Buldhana, Washim and Chandrapur - in the lower bracket.

In a significant aspect, Aurangabad recorded zero deaths for the first time in over four months, while 8 other districts also witnessed zero fatalities for the day.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the fifth day this month, Mumbai recorded 47 fatalities, and the city toll shot up from 9,108 to 9,155 while the number of corona cases shot up by 1,836, lowest in several days, and the city total zoomed from 213,652 to 215,488 now.

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

The MMR fatalities shot up by 79 - taking up the toll from 16,297 to 16,376 and with another spike of 3,603 new infectees, the region crossed the five-lakh mark with the total cases zooming up from 498,980 the previous day to 502,583 now.

With another 51 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased from 8,262 to 8,313 and the daily infections increased by 1,884 - from 380,167 a day earlier to 382,051 cases now.

Nashik circle recorded 3,809 fatalities and 194,160 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,047 deaths and 98,316 cases, and Nagpur circle recorded 2,652 deaths and 115.657 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1,624 deaths and 59,671 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,387 fatalities and 54,715 cases, followed by Akola circle with 992 deaths and 44,830 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine decreased - from 22,09,696 to 22,00,160 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 27,939 to 26,749 on Monday.