Mumbai: Maharashtra COVID-19 cases tally on Monday crossed the 25 lakh mark while Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) jumped the 8 lakh figure, though the day's infections and deaths came down slightly as the state grapples with the ‘second wave’, health officials said.

The state reported 24,645 new infections, considerably down from Sunday's record high of 30,535 and 58 deaths, much lower than Sunday's 99, taking up the state tally to 25,04,327, and toll to 53,457 respectively - both highest in the country.

For the third time this week, Mumbai's new infections figures shot up above 3,000 mark but at 3,262, were lower than the Sunday peak of 3,779, taking up the city total to 365,937 cases and 11,596 fatalities. Adding another 6,212 new cases, the MMR tally zoomed up from 794,983 to 801,195 on Monday.

The state recovery rate came down from 89.32 per cent to 89.22 per cent, while the death rate stood at 2.13 per cent, compared with 2.15 per cent a day earlier, and the number of active cases jumped up from 210,120 to 215,241.

The number of people sent to home isolation shot above the million mark, jumping up from 969,867 to 10,63,077 while those shunted to institutional quarantine increased from 9,601 to 11,092 on Monday.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Rajesh Tope talking to media persons on Monday said that the Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was of the view that lockdown may become mandatory in some cities if the cases continue to rise. Tope said, “Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is worried about the current situation in the state. He has urged people to behave responsibly to avoid infection, otherwise, the government will have to go for enforcing lockdown again. People must follow all COVID-19 guidelines."

Apart from Maharashtra, other states such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Haryana are also witnessing an upward trend in the spread of COVID-19 cases from past few weeks.

The government in Maharashtra recently extended the new COVID guidelines till March 31. Night curfew has been declared in at least 10 districts including, Amravati, Yavatmal, Aurangabad, Jalna and Parbhani. The government has also ordered that theatres and auditoriums will function at 50 per cent capacity while private sector offices have also been asked to function with 50 per cent staff capacity.