Maharashtra’s COVID-19 case tally inched towards the 60,000-mark on Thursday with another big surge of 2,598 new cases taking the cumulative tally to 59,546 while 85 deaths saw the toll rise to 1,982.

Of these, the number of active positive cases now stood at 38,939 with 698 patients being discharged to take the total discharged to 18,616, said State Health department officials.

Also read: All about COVID-19

Mumbai city alone reported 1,044 of the new cases as its tally crossed the 35,000-mark to reach 35,485 cases of whom 24,507 were active ones.

Mumbai city reported 38 of the deaths to take its toll to 1,135.

Ten deaths were reported from the Pune district. While Pune’s death toll, as per official figures, has risen to 301, the district authorities said the figure had already climbed to 306.

Nine deaths were reported from the Satara district in the Pune division over the past week to take its toll to 16, while seven were reported from Solapur to take its count to 59. The Pune district administration said Solapur had already recorded 65 deaths till today.

Five fatalities from the Akola district (toll 28) while three deaths from Aurangabad took its count to 60 despite the district administration pegging it at 66.

Thane and Vasai-Virar each reported four fatalities, taking their toll to 155 and 20 respectively.

“Of the deaths reported on Thursday, 37 had occurred in the last couple of days while the remaining 66 fatalities are from May 15 to May 25. 53% of the deaths reported had high-risk co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma and heart disease,” said State Surveillance Officer, Dr. Pradeep Awate.

He said the State’s mortality rate due to the infection stood at 3.31% (higher than the country’s rate of 2.86%), while Maharashtra’s recovery rate at present was 31.26%.

The Pune district’s case tally, as per the State health department figures, has risen to 6,896, with the district reporting more than 230 cases. Of these, 3,353 cases were active as per official figures, while the district authorities said only 2,900-odd patients were presently active.

Besides Mumbai, the surge in cases in Thane in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) continued unabated, with more than 200 cases taking the district’s tally to 3,763. Navi Mumbai reported 96 cases (tally 2,390).

The Aurangabad district in Marathwada continued to see a relative reduction in the number of cases, with only 35 being reported to take its cumulative tally to 1,375 in contrast with a daily surge of 60 cases a day in the last week, said authorities.

“Till date, 59,546 of the 4,19,417 laboratory samples have tested positive. About 12.4% of the 32,42,160 laboratory tests done in the country were done in Maharashtra,” said Dr. Awate, informing that there were 3,142 tests per million being done in the State against the national figure of 2,363 tests per million.

Dr. Awate said there are 2,816 active containment zones.

“Presently, 6,12,745 persons across the State were in home quarantine and 35,122 were in institutional quarantine facilities,” he said.