Mumbai, Nov 7 (IANS): Covid-19 deaths crossed 18,000 in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and 45,000 for Maharashtra even as the daily fatalities remained high with active cases falling below 1 lakh, health officials said here on Saturday.

The state witnessed 150 deaths - compared with the peak tally of 515 - and the state's fatalities shot past 45,000, from 44,965 to 45,115 now.

The state recorded 3,959 fresh cases - much lower that the peak single-day tally of 24,886 - and the state tally shot up from 17,10,314 to 17,14,273 cases till date.

On the positive side, the state recovery rate increased from 91.35 per cent to 91.53 per cent - while the current mortality rate remained stable at 2.63 per cent.

Simultaneously, another lot of 6,748 fully recovered patients returned home - taking the total from 15,62,342 to 15,69,090 till date - much higher than the 99,151 active cases currently in the state, which dropped below 1 lakh for the first time.

Of the 150 deaths, Pune led the state with 38 fatalities, 32 in Satara, 23 in Mumbai, 16 in Thane, 7 in Nashik, 6 each in Solapur and Sangli, 4 in Nanded, 3 each in Yavatmal and Nagpur, 2 in Latur, 1 each in Raigad, Ahmednagar, Dhule, Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri, Aurangabad, Beed, Bhandara and Chandrapur.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the sixth day this month, Mumbai recorded a low of 23 fatalities, and the city toll climbed from 10,399 to 10,422 now.

For the eighth consecutive day, Mumbai recorded sub-1,000 new daily infections. The number of fresh corona patients went up by 576 - and the city total shot up from 262,473 to 264,049 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 went past 18,000 with 40 new deaths pushing up the toll from 17,962 to 18,002 and with another spike of 1,148 new infectees, the total cases zoomed up from 593,111 the previous day to 594,259 now.

With another 76 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed past 10,000, shooting up from 9,998 to 10,074, and the daily infections increased by 748 - from 431,615 a day earlier to 432,363 cases now.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine again increased - from 10,59,499 to 10,71,163 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went up from 8,897 to 9,799 on Saturday.