Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths and cases dropped but the case tally shot above 14 lakh and the death toll crossed 37,000, while the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) remained grim with growing cases, health officials said here on Thursday.

The state witnessed 394 deaths on Thursday, lower than the peak of 515 and the death toll zoomed past 37,000, from 36,662 to 37,056 now. The state recorded 16,476 new patients - though lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 - pushing up the total from 13,84,446 to 14,00,922 cases till date.

In a relief, the recovery rate also shot up - from 78.61 per cent to 78.84 per cent - while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.65 per cent on Thursday.

Against this, 16,104 fully recovered patients returned home taking up the total number of discharged patients from 10,88,322 to 11,04,426 till date - much higher than the 259,006 'active cases' (ill) currently in the state. As per the figures on Thursday, there was one death roughly every 3.6 minutes and 686 new cases added every hour to the state's tally.

Of the 394 deaths, Nagpur led the state with 60 fatalities, 45 in Pune, 43 in Mumbai, 35 in Satara, 23 in Thane, 19 in Sangli, 17 in Raigad, 15 in Palghar, 14 in Jalgaon, 12 each in Ahmednagar and Kolhapur, 11 in Sindhudurg, 10 each in Aurangabad and Osmanabad, - in the higher bracket.

There were 7 fatalities each in Solapur, Latur, Nanded and Yavatmal, 6 in Nashik, 5 each in Jalna, Amravati and Wardha, 4 in Beed, 3 in Chandrapur, 2 each in Dhule, Ratnagiri, Parbhani and Akola, 1 in Buldhana, besides 3 from other states/foreigners - in the lower bracket. Remaining in the sub-50 range for the sixth consecutive day this month, Mumbai recorded 43 fatalities which took up the toll from 8,929 to 8,972 while the number of corona cases shot up by 2,352 and the city total shot up from 205,268 to 207,620 now.

Of the total 8 circles, the situation in Mumbai circle (MMR - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the edge as deaths spiral and cases pile up. The MMR fatalities shot up by 98 - taking up the toll from 15,851 to 15,949 and with another spike of 4,961 new infectees, the total cases shot up from 481,103 the previous day to 486,064 now.

With another 87 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased from 7,893 to 7,980 and the daily case tally zoomed up by 3,687 - from 366,092 a day earlier to 369,779 cases now.

Nashik circle recorded 3,712 fatalities and 186,419 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 2,922 deaths and 94,988 cases, and Nagpur circle recorded 2,504 deaths and 109,681 cases. Latur circle recorded 1,552 deaths and 57,122 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,344 fatalities and 52,824 cases, followed by Akola circle with 951 deaths and 42,431 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased - from 21,61,448 to 21,74,651 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 29,178 to 28,720 on Thursday.