Mumbai, June 13: Maharashtra on Saturday had some respite as the number of Covid-19 deaths fell to 113, though the number of new cases continued to be on the higher side as 3,427 more patients tested positive. Maharashtra's 113 Covid-19 deaths were down by 39 from its record high of 152 on Thursday, but recorded its third-highest single-day new cases at 3,427 -- down by 180 from the highest 3,607 on May 11. The state's earlier three-digit daily casualties were 103 on June 2, 122 (June 3), 123 (June 4), 139 (June 5) and 120 (June 6), 109 (June 8), 120 (June 9), 149 (June 10), 152 (June 11), 127 (June 12) and 113 (June 13).

This comes to roughly one death every 13 minutes, and a whopping 143 new cases notched every hour in the state. Maharashtra has been recording 100-plus fatalities and new patients over 3K cases almost daily for the past 12 days. With 113 fatalities, the state death toll has zoomed to 3,830 while the total number of coronavirus patients increased to 104,568, both highest in the country. Coronavirus in India: Total Positive Cases, Govt Advisories, Visa Restrictions and All You Need to Know About COVID-19 Outbreak in The Country.

The Health Department said of the total cases till date, 51,379 are active -- increasing by 1,763 over Friday's 49,616. Despite the gloomy data on the ever-increasing number of Covid-19 deaths and cases, the state continues to record an impressive recovery rate, that stood at 47.02 per cent on Saturday and a mortality rate of 3.07 per cent.

Of the 113 fatalities, 69 were recorded in Mumbai alone -- taking the city's death toll up to 2,113, while the number of positive patients here went up by 1,380 cases to touch 56,831. Dharavi -- Asia's biggest slum -- continued to cause worries with 17 new cases and a total of 2,030 cases and 77 fatalities till date.

Besides Mumbai's 69 deaths, there were 12 fatalities in Thane (Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali), 10 in Pune, 8 in Solapur, 6 in Raigad, 3 in Aurangabad, 2 in Latur and 1 each in Satara, Nanded and Yavatmal.

The victims comprised 73 males and 40 females and nearly 80 per cent suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma. On the positive side, 1,550 patients were cured, taking the number of those discharged to 49,346. The MMR (Thane Division) remains a jittery issue with 87 new Covid-19 deaths, taking the death toll to 2,650 and positive cases to 78,134 on Saturday.

Though trailing a distant third after MMR, Pune Division fatalities zoomed to 625, besides 14,191 patients. Since June 1, Thane district - with 17,306 cases and 425 fatalities - has overtaken Pune district which has 11,722 patients but 469 deaths.

The next major region of concern is Nashik Division with 261 deaths and 4,121 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 138 fatalities and 3,135 cases, and finally Akola Division with 69 deaths and 1,659 cases.

Latur Division has 23 deaths and 584 cases, Kolhapur Division 30 deaths and 1,455 patients, and finally Nagpur Division 14 deaths and 1,209 cases. Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine increased from to 5,83,302 on Saturday, while those in institutional quarantine remained unchanged at 28,200.

In another relieving news for patients, there are as many as 79,074 beds currently available in 1,580 Covid-19 institutions in the state. Meanwhile, in a significant move, Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Saturday slashed by 50 per cent the cost of Covid-19 tests in private labs, which was in the range of Rs 4,500-Rs 5,200 to Rs 2,200-Rs 2,800 only, proving a huge relief to thousands of anxious people.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 14, 2020 12:06 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).