Mumbai, Nov 19 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths and new cases zoomed sharply on Thursday, sparking fresh alarm, though the number of active cases dropped below the 80,000-mark, health authorities said.

After remaining in double-digits earlier this week, the state for the second consecutive day witnessed three-digit figures of 154 deaths on Thursday, taking Maharashtra's overall Covid death toll to 46,356.

Shooting above the 5,000-mark for the second day, the state recorded 5,535 fresh infections, taking Maharashtra's Covid tally to 17,63,055 cases till date.

The state's recovery rate continued to improve, from 92.75 per cent to 92.79 per cent, while the current mortality rate remained stable at 2.63 per cent for nine days in a row now.

Simultaneously, another lot of 5,860 fully recovered patients returned home, taking the total number of recoveries to 16,35,971 till date, much higher than the 79,738 active cases currently present in the state.

Of the 154 deaths reported on Thursday, Solapur led the chart with 25 fatalities, followed by 17 each in Thane and Palghar, 12 each in Mumbai and Satara, 11 in Pune, 8 in Nashik, 7 in Nagpur, 6 in Amravati, 5 in Chandrapur, 4 each in Nandurbar and Nanded, 3 each in Jalgaon, Aurangabad and Yavatmal, 2 each in Ahmednagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, Sindhudurg, Latur and Akola, and 1 each in Osmanabad, Beed, Washim and Bhandara.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the 18th day this month, Mumbai recorded 12 fatalities, its lowest since April-levels, taking the city's toll to 10,627. Mumbai's daily infections remained below the 1,000-mark for the fifth day and with 924 fresh cases, the tally shot up to 272,455.

Of the total 8 circles, the Mumbai circle (MMR, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) recorded 46 new deaths, pushing up the toll to 18,441, while a spike of 1,913 new infectees took its tally to 611,559.

Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) fatalities remained in the double-digit level with 48 fatalities, taking the death toll to 10,387, while daily infections increased by 1,246 to 442,117 cases.

Nashik circle has so far recorded 4,453 deaths and 237,115 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,896 fatalities and 111,761 cases, and Nagpur circle's 3,801 deaths and 164,017 cases.

Latur circle has recorded 2,229 fatalities and 72,681 cases, followed by Aurangabad circle's 1,668 fatalities and 65,883 cases, and Akola circle's 1,322 deaths and 55,970 cases.

The number of people sent to home quarantine plummeted sharply again - from 750,992 to 560,868 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 5,354 to 4,284 on Thursday.