Mumbai, Jun 24 (IANS): On a day when Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray warned of a possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Maharashtra's tally crossed the 60 lakh-mark, catapulting it to the fourth slot globally, health officials said here on Thursday.

As on Thursday, Maharasthra has reported a total of 60,07,431 Covid cases, higher than France which has recorded a tally of 57,62,322 till date, and figures at No. 4 in the world behind the US, India and Brazil.

Compared to 508 deaths declared on Wednesday, the state reported 556 fatalities on Thursday, including 197 new deaths and 359 earlier casualties, taking the state's overall Covid death toll to 119,859, the worst in the country.

The number of fresh cases fell below the 10K-level to 9,844 on Thursday, much less that the record peak of 68,631 reported on April 18, taking the state's overall Covid tally to 60,07,431.

In Mumbai, for a month running, new infections remained below the 1K-level at 773 on Thursday, taking the city's tally to 722,736 till date, after touching the highest daily spike of 11,206 cases on April 4.

The daily deaths decreased from 23 a day earlier to 10 on Thursday, taking the country's commercial capital's total fatalities to 15,348.

The state's death rate was reported at 2 per cent on Thursday, while the number of active cases remained below the 2 lakh level at 121,767.

On the brighter side, as many as 9,371 fully cured persons returned home on Thursday, taking the state's total number of recoveries to 57,62,661, with a recovery rate of 95.93.

The Mumbai Circle, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts, recorded a drop in new cases, from 2,515 a day before to 2,313 on Thursday.

With this, MMR's Covid tally went up to 15,83,950, while 47 more fatalities took its Covid death toll to 31,581, in view of reconciliation of the data.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation increased to 632,453 on Thursday, while those shunted to institutional quarantine came down to 4,166.