Mumbai, Oct 17 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths and new cases dropped on Saturday even as the recovery rate continued to be on the upswing, health officials said here.

The state witnessed 250 deaths on Saturday - less than half the compared with the peak of 515 and the state toll shot up from 41,502 to 41,965 now.

The state recorded 10,259 new cases - much lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 - and the state tally climbed from 15,76,062 to 15,86,321 cases till date.

In a great relief, the state recovery rate remained high, increasing from 85.03 per cent to 85.65 per cent - while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.65 per cent.

Against this, 14,238 fully recovered patients returned home - taking up the total number of discharged patients from 13,44,368 to 13,58,606 till date - much higher than the 185,270 active cases currently in the state.

As per Saturday's figures, there was one death roughly every 5.7 minutes and 427 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 250 deaths declared, Mumbai again led with 47 fatalities, 40 in Pune, 22 in Nagpur, 21 in Thane, 18 in Solapur, 13 in Sangli and 11 in Beed - in the higher bracket.

There were 9 fatalities in Satara, 7 in Kolhapur, 6 each in Palghar and Nashik, 5 in Raigad, 4 each in Ahmednagar, Ratnagiri, Aurangabad, Osmanabad, Amravati and Bhandara, 3 each in Yavatmal, Washim and Wardha, 2 each in Sindhudurg, Jalna and Chandrapur, 1 each in Jalgaon, Hingoli, Latur, Nanded, Gondia and Gadchiroli - in the lower bracket.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the 16th day this month, Mumbai recorded 47 fatalities, and the city toll shot up from 9,638 to 9,739 while the number of cases rose by 1,791 and the city total zoomed from 238,544 to 240,335 now.

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

The MMR fatalities shot up by 79 - and the toll increased from 17,288 to 17,234 and with another spike of 3,410 new infectees, the total cases zoomed up from 546,839 the previous day to 550,249 now.

With another 67 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed from 9,088 to 9,176 and the daily infections increased by 1,529 - from 406,822 a day earlier to 4,08,351 cases now.

Nashik circle recorded 4,088 deaths and 212,921 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,473 fatalities and 104,924 cases, and Nagpur circle had 3,293 deaths and 134,967 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1.876 deaths and 65,218 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,494 fatalities and 58,623 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,162 deaths and 49,105 cases now.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased sharply - from 23,33,522 to 23,95,552 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went up from 23,409 to 23,749 on Saturday.