Mumbai, Oct 21 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths and new cases again went into reverse gear even as the number of recoveries crossed the 14 lakh-mark while the fatality rate remained stable, health officials said here on Wednesday.

The state witnessed 180 deaths in the past 24 hours, much less compared to the peak of 515 reported on September 15, taking the state's Covid death toll to 42,633.

The state recorded 8,142 new cases - lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 reported on September 11 - mounting the state's tally to 16,17,658 cases till date.

On a positive note, the state's recovery rate continued to remain high and increased from 86.05 per cent to 87.51 per cent, while the current mortality rate remained stable at 2.64 per cent.

Simultaneously, 23,371 fully recovered patients returned home - taking up the total number of discharged patients to 14,15,679 till date - much higher than the 158,852 active cases currently present in the state.

As per Wednesday's figures, there was one death roughly every 8 minutes and 339 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 180 deaths declared on Wednesday, Mumbai topped the chart with 48 fatalities, followed by Pune (20), Thane and Nagpur (15 each), Kolhapur (12), Latur (11), Jalgaon and Sangli (9 each), Nashik, Solapur, Osmanabad, Nanded and Akola (4 each), Raigad and Satara (3 each), Palghar, Jalna, Parbhani, Yavatmal, Buldhana and Wardha (2 each), and Dhule, Hingoli and Beed (1 each).

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the 20th day this month, Mumbai recorded 48 fatalities, as the city's toll shot up to 9,912, while the number of corona cases shot up by 1,609, again the highest in the state, to 245,869.

Of the total 8 circles, the Mumbai circle's (MMR, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) fatalities shot up by 68, taking the Covid death toll to 17,462, while another spike of 3,117 new cases lifted its tally to 561,256.

With another 27 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed to 9,314 while the daily infections increased by 1,953 to take the tally to 414,117.

Nashik circle has so far recorded 4,131 deaths and 216,398 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,543 fatalities and 106,212 cases, and Nagpur circle's 3,386 deaths and 140,294 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1,945 deaths and 66,394 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,524 fatalities and 60,537 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,190 deaths and 50,420 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased from 24,34,687 to 24,47,292 now, while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 23,488 to 23,312 on Wednesday.